The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

This handbook looks to provide academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation. Innovation spans a number of fields within the social sciences and humanities: Management, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Politics, Psychology, and History. Consequently, the rapidly increasing body of literature on innovation is characterized by a multitude of perspectives based on, or cutting across, existing disciplines and specializations. Scholars of innovation can come from such diverse starting points that much of this literature can be missed, and so constructive dialogues missed. The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Innovation have carefully selected and designed twenty-one contributions from leading academic experts within their particular field, each focusing on a specific aspect of innovation. These have been organized into four main sections, the first of which looks at the creation of innovations, with particular focus on firms and networks. Section Two provides an account of the wider systematic setting influencing innovation and the role of institutions and organizations in this context. Section Three explores some of the diversity in the working of innovation over time and across different sectors of the economy, and Section Four focuses on the consequences of innovation with respect to economic growth, international competitiveness, and employment. An introductory overview, concluding remarks, and guide to further reading for each chapter, make this handbook a key introduction and vital reference work for researchers, academics, and advanced students of innovation. Contributors to this volume - Jan Fagerberg, University of Oslo William Lazonick, INSEAD Walter W. Powell, Stanford University Keith Pavitt, SPRU Alice Lam, Brunel University Keith Smith, INTECH Charles Edquist, Linkoping David Mowery, University of California, Berkeley Mary O'Sullivan, INSEAD Ove Granstrand, Chalmers Bjorn Asheim, University of Lund Rajneesh Narula, Copenhagen Business School Antonello Zanfei, Urbino Kristine Bruland, University of Oslo Franco Malerba, University of Bocconi Nick Von Tunzelmann, SPRU Ian Miles, University of Manchester Bronwyn Hall, University of California, Berkeley Bart Verspagen , ECIS Francisco Louca, ISEG Manuel M. Godinho, ISEG Richard R. Nelson, Mario Pianta, Urbino Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Aalborg

The Oxford Handbook of Innovation

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process

Social innovation is oriented towards creative solution to the social problems and satisfaction for the social needs,with several characteristics including the sociality of objectives,the plurality of subjects and the creativity of methods and so on.Social innovation is always accompanied by the technological innovation as the former is a basic element of the latter.Therefore,only accentuating social innovation,fostering the concept of the social innovation,constructing an effective operation mechanism for social innovation,can we fit diverse requirements from modern society and develop a harmonious society.

On Social Innovation

Since their official launch in 2006, over one hundred Living Labs have been established and networked to tackle Europe’s declining economic competitiveness and societal challenges. The innovative potential of Living Labs is based on new social configurations for organising innovation. Applying a framework that focuses on barriers presented by such social configurations, by motivational factors and by cognitive/background asymmetries, our paper analyses the contributions and impediments to innovation, and the dilemmas that may arise when innovating in Living Labs. The first contribution of the paper is to demonstrate the framework’s analytical power to uncover and articulate contributions and challenges inherent to the social dimension of innovation. The second contribution of this explorative study is to pinpoint and examine a number of contributions of and challenges for Living Labs. On the basis of a literature re- view, we untangle and describe the three main facets of the concept: in vivo experimentation on social systems, innovation and product development approaches involving users, or innovation systems. We conclude by gathering crucial questions facing contemporary Living Labs.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2533251_code2327182.pdf?abstractid=2533251&mirid=1

Unpacking European Living Labs: Analysing Innovation’s Social Dimensions

Since their official launch in 2006, over one hundred Living Labs have been established and networked to tackle Europe’s declining economic competitiveness and societal challenges. The innovative potential of Living Labs is based on new social configurations for organising innovation. Applying a framework that supports the description of such social configurations and that focuses on barriers manifested by motivational and cognitive asymmetries between actors, we analyse the contributions and impediments to innovation and identify the problems that characterise innovation in Living Labs. We demonstrate the framework’s analytical power to uncover and articulate contributions and challenges inherent to the ‘social dimension’ of innovation. At the same time, we pinpoint and examine some contributions of and challenges for Living Labs. On the basis of a literature review, we untangle and describe the three main facets of the Living Lab concept: as a setting for in vivo experimentation on social systems, for innovation and product development approaches involving users, and for innovation systems. We conclude by gathering some crucial questions facing contemporary Living Labs.

/pdf/social-innovation-as-impact-of-the-third-sector-4ekeqbr4j9.pdf

Social Innovation as Impact of the Third Sector

Building on theories from different fields, we discuss the roles that volunteers can play in the generation, implementation, and diffusion of social innovations. We present a study relying on 26 interviews with volunteer managers, other professionals, volunteers, and one former volunteer in 17 (branches of) third sector organizations in eight European countries. We identify organizational factors that help and hinder volunteer contributions to social innovation. While volunteer contributions to social innovations are encouraged by decentralized organizational structures, systematic “scaling up” of ideas, providing training, and giving a sense of ownership, they are hindered by a reluctant attitude and a lack of resources . This rich, explorative study makes it a fruitful start for further research on the relationship between volunteering and social innovation.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0899764017734651

Beyond Service Production: Volunteering for Social Innovation:

We critically assess expectations in radical system innovation from the point of view of their “moderateness”, i.e. whether alternative scenarios have been properly considered, and whether counterarguments have been addressed. We use the case of the planning of the Dutch Electronic Health Record (EHR) to illustrate the role of immoderate expectations and their underlying assumptions. By discussing these assumptions in the light of contested issues in international literature, we uncover the uncritical reception of innovations like the EHR, and their potential consequences. We show that certain relevant aspects of academic critique are barely voiced in the political debate. Our analysis can be connected to expectations in innovation in general, in particular those involving ICT, such as expecting to deal with “ideal users”, to be able to take information out of its original context, to achieve cost-efficiency by automation, and to overcome human errors by technology. Based on our observations, we plead for a more realistic view of innovation, in which immoderate expectations can to a certain extent be “unpacked” without falling back to essentialist claims.

Wouter Mensink

Papers

Unpacking European Living Labs: Analysing Innovation’s Social Dimensions

Unpacking European Living Labs: Analysing Innovation’s Social Dimensions

Social Innovation as Impact of the Third Sector

Beyond Service Production: Volunteering for Social Innovation:

The Role of Expectations in System Innovation: The Electronic Health Record, Immoderate Goal or Achievable Necessity?