Is measuring social innovation a mission impossible?

Abstract

The main aim of the paper is to question the viability of measuring social innovation with the current state of knowledge on the one hand, and to make suggestions for better measurement of it on the other. To reach this aim, the literature on the traditional measures of technological innovation and the previous attempts of measuring social innovation is surveyed. Despite relatively narrow scope of the literature mainly originated from the very recent and pioneer experiments, one may argue that the first findings do not present a promising picture for future studies. Therefore, existing trials to measure social innovation have to be critically screened to ascertain problematic areas, and hence, to provide plausible solutions. The problems with social innovation metrics are not only limited with obtaining concrete and trustworthy results, but also extended to statistical, methodological and even conceptual spheres.

Keywords:

• Innovation
• technological innovation
• social innovation
• innovation indicators
• social innovation metrics

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express his deep gratitude to Stephan Klasen (Georg-August University of Göttingen), Mustafa Aykut Attar (Hacettepe University), Marcela Ibanez Diaz (Georg-August University of Göttingen), Alexia Gaudeul (Georg-August University of Göttingen), three anonymous reviewers, and the Editors of the Journal for their valuable feedbacks and suggestions on the previous drafts of the article.

Notes

1 Meanwhile, one should not ignore that some TIs conducted by the business enterprises may have direct positive impact on the improvement of the societal welfare rather than solely tackling on the profit maximization motive, and hence, approach to the chief goals of the SIs similar to the case of government supports entangling in the improvement of the national innovative systems.

2 In fact, the name of the reports also changed several times. In 2001, the report is prepared as a European Commission staff working paper under the title of ‘2001 Innovation Scoreboard’. From 2002 to 2009, the title changed into ‘European Innovation Scoreboard’. It became ‘Innovation Union Scoreboard’ between 2010 and 2015; and again turned back to the title of ‘European Innovation Scoreboard’ from 2016 onwards.

3 The innovation dimensions and indicators are presented in Table A1 of the Appendix section.

4 Therefore, one may argue that it is hard to capture regional disparities with the composite indices such as SII. Moreover, mechanical use of these indices for policy-making activities may be detrimental for some regions, sub-regions and/or countries.

5 More detailed discussion concerning with the technical statistical issues of EIS can be found in Schibany and Streicher (2008).

6 List of indices, pillars, sub-pillars and indicators utilized for measuring the GII can be found in Table A2 of the Appendix section.

7 Nevertheless, this should not imply that GDP per capita is a good indicator of successful innovative performance.

8 In the latest edition of the GII, at least 10 indices are identically used as indicators. Some examples are ‘political stability and absence of violence/terrorism index’, ‘government effectiveness index’, ‘regulatory quality index’, ‘rule of law index’, ‘ICT access index’, ‘ICT use index’, ‘government’s online service index’, and so on (Cornell University, INSEAD, and WIPO 2018, 352–365).

9 List of dimensions, sub-indicators and indicators proposed by the TEPSIE Project for measuring social innovation can be found in Table A3 of the Appendix section.

10 ‘Cooperation partner’s degree of diversity (organizational proximity) to develop social innovations’, and ‘degree of diversity in the technical-social confidence towards other cooperation partners (social capital) for the development of social innovation’ can be given as two representative examples among 14 proposed SI indicators.

11 In a relatively new study, Yesufu and Alajlani (2019) investigate SI projects in the context of human resource developments, political influence and entrepreneurial frameworks. Their findings indicate that future investments in SI and social entrepreneurship will have a great value.

12 The four pillars together with their weights and constituent indicators are as follows: i. Policy and Institutional Framework (44.44%) (Existence of national policy on social innovation, social innovation research and impact, legal framework for social enterprises, effectiveness of system in policy implementation, rule of law); ii. Availability of financing (22.22%) (Availability of government financing to promote social innovation, ease of getting credit, total public social expenditure); iii. Entrepreneurship (15.00%) (Risk-taking mindset, citizen’s attitude towards entrepreneurship, ease of starting a business, development of clusters); iv. Civil society (18.33%) (Culture of volunteerism, political participation, civil society engagement, trust in society, press freedom) (EIU 2016, 7).

13 Actually, the researchers themselves are also quite aware of this defect explicitly stating that ‘quantifying the outputs of social innovation is, of course, a vital task, but not of this study attempts’ (EIU 2016, 10).

14 10 of the indicators are qualitative assessments of a country’s environment for social innovation, for example,

‘Existence of a national policy on social innovation’ which is assessed on a scale of 0–2, where 0=no policy exists and 2=clear policy on social innovation exists (…) The qualitative indicator scores were informed by publicly available information (such as government policies and reviews), and country expert interviews. Qualitative indicators scored by The Economist Intelligence Unit are often presented on an integer scale of 1–5 (where 1=worst, 5=best) (EIU 2016, 42).

15 However, Ziegler (2017) proposes to perceive SI as a ‘collaborative’ concept rather than a contestable one so that different usage of it from distinct social disciplines can be welcomed, and the researchers associated with the phenomenon of SI can find enough space to work together.

16 The same issue is underlined by Bund et al. (2015, 59) in the following way:

the central conclusion that can be drawn from the literature review and the screening of existing innovation metrics is that traditional dimensions or aspects of innovation measurement can only be partially applied to the measurement of social innovation. The structural similarity between both types of innovation makes this possible to a certain extent. However, differences in content between both types require major adjustments of key aspects.

17 SI can undoubtedly be described as an approach that favors the ways of attaining better ways of life. According to Reeder et al. (2012, 11), ‘from open source software to crowd source investment, from co-produced care for the elderly to circles of friends for children with disabilities, social innovation is an approach that can influence all walks of life for the better.’ Additionally, Engelbrecht (2018) attempts to construct unified normative theoretical linkages between well-being and all types of innovation including the SI.

18 IM Force or simply IMF (not the International Monetary Fund), is a fictional agency in the Mission: Impossible serial. The television version is an espionage agency while in the film series it is an agency of the US government. The IMF was firstly introduced in the TV serial Mission: Impossible, and then broadcasted from 1966 through 1973. Later on, in 1996, the IMF has been presented in a number of films starring famous Tom Cruise. In all the series, the members of the agency generally undertake almost impossible tasks that they ultimately accomplish under very unfavorable circumstances full of hardships, complexity and risk.