Gender dimensions in women’s networking for social innovation

Abstract

Even if the number of research studies on social innovation has increased the last years, due to its perceived potential to address complex societal challenges, there still remains several relevant aspects to be explored, such as the impact of gendered norms and patterns on the transition from social inclusion to social exclusion strived for in social innovation processes. In order to further expand the dawning scientific field of social innovation, this article presents a case study of a Swedish network promoting women’s employment, entrepreneurship and innovation, exploring the complex and multiple gender aspects of social innovation. The potentials and delimitations of the network to address gender on various levels of social innovation is scrutinized by means of previous research on social and gender dimensions of innovation and organizational/societal change, exposing that further development of social innovation as a scientific field requires a comprehensive approach to the identification and analysis of the gendered norms, subordination and empowerment that affect the aspired transition from social exclusion to social inclusion in social innovation processes.

Keywords:

• innovation
• social innovation
• gender
• women
• women’s networks

Additional information

Funding

The study was conducted within the R&D project Gendered social innovation managed by Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, with funding from the public innovation agency VINNOVA during the period 2013–2015.