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Everything and nothing: A critical review of the "social" in Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies
Everything and nothing: A critical review of the "social" in Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies
[journal article]
Abstract Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the "social" element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to "elevate"... view more
Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the "social" element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to "elevate" existing or emerging innovation and entrepreneurship processes by identifying and promoting socially-acceptable standards of behavior and goal-setting. While previous reviews on social innovation have focused on the historical development of the concept and its role in academic debate, this article critically reviews the place of the "social" in current mainstream Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) studies. The aim is to understand how this literature has been evolving in relation to this element and to what extent this addition has promoted a radical shift in the research direction. Our review, based on selected articles from 16 I&E mainstream journals, advances a novel classification of the dominant approaches to the social dimension in I&E studies, identifying four main categories: disciplinary, integrationist, separationist, and essentialist. What emerges is that most I&E studies ignore, minimize, or compartmentalize the "social", using it to extend existing frameworks rather than to evolve them. Indeed, while the "social" has been offering an avenue for critical views to challenge mainstream discourse, at present it does not seem to significantly affect the latter's evolution.... view less
Keywords
innovation; social change; innovation research; entrepreneurship
Classification
Sociology of Science, Sociology of Technology, Research on Science and Technology
Free Keywords
critical social studies; innovation studies; entrepreneurship studies; social innovation; social entrepreneurship
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 63-88
Journal
NOvation - Critical Studies of Innovation (2022) 4
Issue topic
Critical perspectives in social innovation, social enterprise and/or the social solidarity economy
ISSN
2562-7147
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0