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Social Innovation: Not Without Civil Society

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Civil Society: Concepts, Challenges, Contexts

Part of the book series: Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies ((NCSS))

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Abstract

This chapter makes a case for the central role of civil society in successful social innovation. Of course, social innovation is not restricted to one sector of society. However, we argue that civil society actors have special resources to identify unsolved social problems and broad competencies to develop solutions, and their independence allows them to easily pilot solutions. After the concept of social innovation is introduced, we discuss the potential for social innovation of the three sectors as well as their typical failures as described in the literature. A closer inspection of the process of social innovation through the lens of the social investment concept shows that the unique resource of civil society is legitimacy—a key factor in successful social innovation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter elaborates on an earlier paper written by CSI members as an internal contribution to the project: “The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe” (TEPSIE), European Commission—7th Framework Programme, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research. That earlier version was presented and discussed at the 2014 conference of the International Society for Third-Sector Research (Münster, Germany) (Then & Mildenberger, 2014).

  2. 2.

    Havas (2016) has a skeptical view; Krlev et al. (2014) are a bit more optimistic but see the need to complement typical indicators of business innovation with additional indicators from more social science-oriented datasets.

  3. 3.

    We are aware of the fact that market organizations must fulfill requirements other than economic rationality too. This aspect has been discussed by numerous scholars, e.g., scholars of neo-institutionalism. They argue that the fulfillment of institutional requirements or the requirements from stakeholders, respectively (besides profit maximization in the sense of economic rationality), are essential for organizations’ survival (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 66). Meeting these requirements increases the legitimacy of the organizations. While it is clear that legitimacy is crucial, only few highly legitimate organizations can survive although they do not follow an economic rationality.

  4. 4.

    A highly simplified (rational choice) perspective on political action; see Downs (1957).

  5. 5.

    See Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) and Kingdon (1995).

  6. 6.

    For a civil society perspective, see Dekker and van den Broek (1998).

  7. 7.

    The social science literature refers to this in terms of intermediary organizations.

  8. 8.

    This perspective is supported by notions of increasing moralization of markets (Stehr et al., 2010).

  9. 9.

    For example, Le Comptoir de l’ Innovation, a social impact investment subsidiary of the French Groupe SOS, comp. https://www.france.pulse-group.org/

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fondazione AIS – Advancing Impact and Sustainability, Bologna, Italy

    Volker Then

  2. Centre for Social Investment, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Georg Mildenberger

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  1. Volker Then
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  2. Georg Mildenberger
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Correspondence to Volker Then .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Speyer, Germany

    Michael Hoelscher

  2. Hamburg, Germany

    Regina A. List

  3. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Alexander Ruser

  4. George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA

    Stefan Toepler

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Then, V., Mildenberger, G. (2022). Social Innovation: Not Without Civil Society. In: Hoelscher, M., List, R.A., Ruser, A., Toepler, S. (eds) Civil Society: Concepts, Challenges, Contexts. Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98008-5_6

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