#4486. A complex-systems perspective on the role of universities in social innovation

August 2026publication date
Proposal available till 15-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Business and International Management;
Management of Technology and Innovation;
Applied Psychology;
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Abstract:
A lack of agreement on what is included in social innovation processes and outcomes has not stopped universities in exploring their possible role(s) in the phenomena; yet these efforts have largely replicated existing approaches to technological and business innovation, which is ill-aligned with much current scholarship in social innovation. We argue that universities’ social innovation support should emerge from the lessons of social innovation scholarship itself: specifically, we assert based on cross-case analysis that universities have important roles in: providing the space for initial discovery or descriptions of new phenomena and ways of doing; destabilizing the dominant system arrangements; supporting niches for idea generation and development. While these examples are pulled from history, they provide a potential set of road maps for social innovation programming at universities, some of which is consistent with current work but others that will require serious re-examination and redevelopment of universities’ roles in the broader social innovation ecosystem.
Keywords:
Historical case studies; Social innovation; Universities

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