The social innovation continuum: Towards addressing definitional ambiguity

Abstract

From a social problem-solution springboard, this paper develops a framework to capture the breadth and fluidity of social innovation within the contemporary landscape of innovation. The social innovation continuum advanced in the paper reconciles incremental, institutional and disruptive social innovations that vary in their scalability and impact. A novel notion of hybrid innovation extends the mainstream perspective of social innovation, to encompass science and technology innovations that are predominantly profit driven but can have an enormous impact on solving specific social problems of global significance. Consideration is also given to how associated social entrepreneur and entrepreneurship and social enterprise frames fit in relation to the social innovation continuum. The flexible yet robust continuum framework is recommended as a route to overcome current definitional ambiguity as well as for extending the concept of social innovation.