Impoved measurement of the economic underpinnings of social innovation (original) (raw)

Social innovation is explained as new combinations of social, economic and political capital (resources and capabilities). The value or impact of social innovation derives from the interaction between the supply and demand for social innovations. As producers and users of social innovations the stakeholders of the business, public and civic or third sector engage in interactive learning and co-creation of use value, or ‘value-in-context’. Based on the derived indicator requirements, indicator sets are proposed. The application of the measurement framework at the micro-level of social innovations identifies combinations of social innovation inputs, objectives, obstacles and outputs, that for instance differ by the theme of social innovation, the type of social innovation, and the geographical scale of operations. Application at the macro level of European regions shows that social innovation factors impact GDP and beyond. Four types of regional ecosystems of social innovation can be identified. As different contexts they induce different micro social innovation impacts.