The bridging scholarship

2014

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Social innovation, as an interdisciplinary field of research, deals with the concept of value creation in the context of societal aspects. According to the conventional definition of innovation in which value creation mostly refers to commercialization, various actors in the value chain, whether vertical (suppliers) or horizontal (customers, competitors), aim at maximizing their own benefits. Social innovation, on the other hand, puts society at the center. Thus, different parties collaborate to find more efficient, effective, and sustainable solutions to social problems. In this study, by using the terms collaboration and social innovation together, we aim at revealing themes in this research field throughout the years between 1970 and 2016. We apply co-citation analysis to find out theoretical foundations of this recently emerged field. Accordingly, we obtain six clusters with different attributes, such as cross-sector partnerships in social innovation, the definition of social innovation, transition studies, social entrepreneurship, innovation studies, and inter-organizational relations. As for the first cluster, cross-sector partnerships are initiated based on the idea of collective action. Therefore, partners from public, private, and non-profit institutions commit their resources to networking in order to find a new solution to a social problem. Studies in the second cluster aim at identifying the field of social innovation. Studies on grassroots innovation in the third cluster include a focus on sustainability of social innovation activities, while the fourth cluster is composed of studies dealing with social innovation in relation to social entrepreneurship. Therefore, they are treated as nested concepts. The fifth cluster includes papers studying social innovation by using the terminology of innovation. The final cluster is themed as inter-organizational relations with specific emphasis on network organizations as strategic alliances, joint ventures, franchises, and research consortia. Based on the results of co-citation analysis, we conclude that studies on collaboration in social innovation are an interconnected area of research except for one cluster, namely transition studies.

Social Innovations Journal, 2021

In a time of disruption, how do our social innovation organizations maintain the enabling conditions for productivity, commitment, creativity, and purpose? In this article I summarize the practical wisdom shared with me during twelve online dialogues convened from 2018 to 2020. Highly experienced and effective network designers and facilitators ("netweavers") discussed how they addressed challenges to their efforts to pursue social justice and ecological and economic well-being while working remotely within collaborative learning networks. I provide their own verbatim advice on how to catalyze creativity and impact within a highly dispersed innovation community, and offer 27 actionable steps organized under four headings that address: (1) how to show up in your organization, (2) how to organize so governance and creativity becomes self-generating, (3) how to manage your organization over time, and (4) how to manage during shock and stress. These ideas can help sustain the ability of your organization to pursue effective strategies to address seemingly intractable problems, adapt to changing conditions and new contexts, scale innovation, and respond rapidly to crisis.

Organizational Dynamics, 2013

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2005

This paper contributes to the field of social innovation by exploring how the ideas and theory behind it are produced as knowledge, particularly in the Canadian context. Social innovation is increasingly important for management research and education, and we argue that how knowledge is developed is important for understanding how points of interest converge and diverge.

Research Policy, 2007

Bridging institutions or organisations are regarded as having positive effects in the Sectoral Systems of Innovation (SSI) literature, particularly in compensating for weaknesses in these systems. Yet, we know little about the organisational practices that make their role effective, or the types of innovation paths that they may facilitate within a system. This paper shows how bridging organisations may promote neglected areas of creativity and potential disruptive innovation. These blocked opportunities tend to emerge at the boundaries of SSI: where old sectors overlap and new trajectories form. We draw on the social networks, entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation literature and analyse an intervention in the UK electronic games industry: the evaluation of business propositions exploiting new gaming platforms such as mobile telephones, DVD and film. Using an innovative co-productive research design, the study shows how the effectiveness of bridging organisation activity depends on key design choices and brokerage capabilities.

Technology Innovation Management Review, 2012