The emergent process of social innovation: multi-stakeholders perspective

Abstract

This paper explores the process of how social innovation is created. There have been many researches about social entrepreneurs. However, few studies have been made about social innovation in comparison to many researches in business innovation. Most social innovation is not created by a single entrepreneur (producer) but in collaboration with related stakeholders including customers, civil society organisations, local businesses, researchers and so on. This paper tries to clarify this process through a case study of the Hokkaido Green Fund, an environmental NGO in Japan. They have introduced the first community wind energy business in Japan. The social entrepreneurs co-create unique ideas with stakeholders and obtain various resources from them in tackling social issues, and create an innovative scheme. This paper tries to present a new perspective for the analysis of the social innovation process from the viewpoint of multi-stakeholders.