An ecosystemic model for the technological development of social entrepreneurship: exploring clusters of social innovation

ABSTRACT

Social-tech enterprises are organizations that create social value by employing technological innovation as part of their value proposition. The complexity and the cross-institutional character which link technological innovation to social business models makes these organizations inherently ecosystemic in their necessity of developing dense interactions to enact their social and technologically innovative objectives. This paper investigates which ecosystem configurations can enable the technological development of social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the research analyses European clusters of social innovation to understand if clusters can represent a viable ecosystemic option to promote technology transfer and adoption by social enterprises. Results reveal that current social innovation clusters display peculiar features as the necessity of bilateral networking with specialized actors, the low weight attributed to physical proximity, and the scarcity and informality of technology transfer processes. These elements, which are not typically displayed by a traditional cluster model, suggest considering different ecosystemic strategies to actively promote the technological development of social enterprises or for reconceptualizing clusters towards a demand-side perspective. Despite such a claim, our evidence shows that specific cluster configurations involving openness, low specialization on social economy, high cognitive proximity and structured governance models may informally unleash the generation of jacobian externalities fostering technological development.

KEYWORDS:

• Social innovation
• innovation ecosystem
• innovation cluster
• technology transfer
• social entrepreneurship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See: Social Innovation | Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (europa.eu).

2 See: Social Economy – Smart Specialization Platform (europa.eu), Latest access April 2021.

3 See: Clusters of Social and Ecological Innovation – Social Economy Community – EC Extranet Wiki (europa.eu); Latest access: April 2021.

4 See: The potential of social economy clusters – Euclid Network, Latest access April 2021.

5 See also: Social Economy | European Cluster Collaboration Platform: Latest access April 2021.

6 See: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/wikis/display/SEC/Clusters±of±Social±and±Ecological±Innovation#:~:text=Clusters%20of%20Social%20and%20Ecological%20Innovation%20(CSEI)%20group%20social%20economy,economic%2C%20ecological%20and%20societal%20prosperity. Latest access: April 2021.

7 See: Gobierno de Navarra: ‘Navarra’s Innovation System’ available at: Presentación de PowerPoint (fetfx.eu).