scholarly journals Collectivist Practices in Social Innovation: Functions of Cooperation

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71
Author(s):  
Svetlana G. Klimova ◽  
Ivan A. Klimov

This articles analyzes the business strategy of social innovators. We call the heads and employees of non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and the initiators of volunteer projects “social innovators”, as they not only use organizational novelties in their activities, but also change routine rules and practices, which alters the life of a society connected in any way with the activities of those organizations. It is demonstrated that the standard expectations of ideologues and officials, in respect to the activity of social innovators, contradict their values and visions of proper behavior. They consistently show orientation towards cooperation with each other and the social environment. Solidarity, the development of communities around non-profit organizations or social enterprises, is not only a resource, but also an independent effect of their activity. The functions of cooperation in the activity of social innovators are described. Cooperation is required not only to implement the mission accepted by innovators, but also to solve practical production problems. These are: the increase of knowledge and exchange of experience; cooperation for solving difficult problems; the joint elaboration of standards of professional ethics and business ethics; a way to gain reputation among colleagues and service consumers; the promotion of new values; and the preservation, re-creation, or restoration of the local community. It is concluded that the competition ideologeme promoted in the community of social innovators should be replaced with the cooperation ideologeme and relevant training programs.

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (9) ◽  
pp. 970-991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. McDonald ◽  
Jay Weerawardena ◽  
Sreedhar Madhavaram ◽  
Gillian Sullivan Mort

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a sustainability-based typology for non-profit organizations and corresponding strategies to sustain the mission and/or financial objectives of non-profit organizations. The balance of mission and money, known in the non-profit literature as the double bottom line, is a challenge for professional managers who run non-profits and scholars who study them. Design/methodology/approach – Typologies are often used to classify phenomena to improve understanding and bring about clarity. In this paper, non-profit organizations are viewed from a social and fiscal viability perspective, developed from the long standing challenge of balancing mission and money. Findings – The typology developed in this paper identifies several normative strategies that correspond to the social and fiscal viability of non-profit organizations. In fact, the strategies offered in this paper can help non-profit managers achieve organizational sustainability, thus enabling them to continue what they are meant to do – to provide greater social value to their constituents. Research limitations/implications – The typology presented is a classification system rather than a theoretical typology. Its purpose is to help managers of non-profits to recognize threats to their organizations’ long-term survival and offer strategies that if adopted can move the organizations to less vulnerable positions. However, the recommended strategies are by no means exhaustive. Furthermore, the focus of the paper is on non-profit organizations, not profit-driven or hybrid entities. The sustainability-based typology of non-profit organizations and the corresponding strategies have implications for practitioners and academics. The typology and its contents can help managers assess their non-profits, competitive environment and their current strategies, plan their double bottom line strategies and last but not the least, develop and implement strategies for social and fiscal sustainability. In addition, our paper provides great opportunities for future research to subject our typology and its contents to conceptual and empirical scrutiny. Practical implications – The strategies described here are developed based on scholarly research and examples from successful non-profits. The typology and the related list of strategies provide a manager with the tools to accurately diagnose organizational challenges and adopt plans to improve the organization’s viability. Social implications – Non-profit organizations are an integral part of society that bolsters economic prosperity, environmental integrity and social justice. This paper may provide guidance for a number of non-profit managers to keep their organizations operating and serving important social missions. Originality/value – In the context of organizations for social mission, several typologies exist that looked at firms from the perspectives of ownership versus profit objectives, entrepreneurship conceptualizations of economists and origins and development paths of social enterprises. While these typologies provided foundations for theoretical and empirical work into social enterprises, our typology offers strategies for the sustainability of mission and/or money objectives of non-profits. The value of this research lies in integrating virtuous and pragmatic objectives of non-profit sustainability that, in turn, can ensure the social mission of non-profits.


wisdom ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liudmila Alexandrovna Vasilenko

We have applied the term “entrepreneurship” to the development of non-profit organizations working in the field of social and innovation activity. We consider entrepreneurship as a process of personal, self-organizing or systemic renewal and self-organization, as a movement through the development of ideas towards creating new and existing enterprises. We reviewed the promotion of social innovations on a methodological basis of sociosynergetics using cross-disciplinary and fractal-evolutionary approaches. The introduction of innovations is accompanied by the irreversibility expressed by the violation of symmetry between the past and the future (according to I. Prigogine), and the research of innovations requires the introduction of the concept of an “event”. Some events should have the ability to change the course of evolution. The criterion for evaluating the advancement of social innovation is the degree of its influence on the social system: the local nature of the impact (change in one or several order parameters) – Auto-Poesies models; the emergence of a new parameter of order in connection with the acquisition of a new quality of the social system – Synergy-integrating models; the allocation of a new sub-system in the framework of the modernized old social system – Openness entrepreneurship models; the birth of a fundamentally new social system, accompanied by the destruction of the old order parameters. In managing innovation processes, it is important to choose such innovations that are in line with the trends in the development of the social system, given the scale of social consequences.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aluisius Hery Pratono

There has been a proliferation of internationalisation movement aiming to support social enterprises, but there are few studies on how the inter-organisational collaboration occurs. Hence, this study concerns to understand how the internationalisation of social enterprise happens with support from the international non-profit organisations by (1) enabling the local non-profit organisations to adopt the social enterprise model and (2) upholding the social innovation through enhancing the inter-organisational learning.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 236
Author(s):  
Ana Beatriz Blanco-Ariza ◽  
Alexis Messino-Soza ◽  
Ángel Wilhelm Vázquez-García ◽  
Enrique Melamed-Varela

This article reviews the literature related to the concepts of social innovation and non-profit organizations, applying a bibliometric analysis to the last five years of publications in the Scopus platform and Web of Science. The results suggest that these concepts complement rather than exclude each other, as social innovation can add to the social value of this type of organization. The social commitment of non-profit organizations and its relevance to integrating an innovative approach in their management is also discussed as a way to confront social problems through innovation and promote more participation and development in the social sector.


Author(s):  
Francisco do Adro ◽  
Cristina I. Fernandes ◽  
Pedro M. Veiga ◽  
Sascha Kraus

AbstractWith the downturn in the global socioeconomic panorama, the social entrepreneurship orientation (SEO) and the social performance of non-profit organizations (NPOs) have become subject to growing levels of attention. The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of SEO on the performance of NPOs. To this end, we deployed a quantitative methodology based on the application of a survey of NPOs, which received a total of 135 valid responses. Our results demonstrate a positive effect for the dimensions of social innovation and social proactivity even while reporting no effect for the acceptance of social risks on performance. These results hold important implications across two different levels: in terms of the NPOs and policy-makers.


Author(s):  
Shannon Lucky ◽  
Dinesh Rathi

Social media technologies have the potential to be powerful knowledge sharing and community building tools for both corporate and non-profit interests. This pilot study explores the social media presence of a group of forty-six Alberta-based non-profit organizations (NPOs) in this information rich space. In this paper we look at the pattern of presence of NPOs using social media and relationships with staffing structures.Les médias sociaux ont la capacité d’être de puissants outils de partage de la connaissance et de rassemblement communautaire pour les organisations à but lucratif et sans but lucratif. Cette étude pilote explore la présence dans les médias sociaux d’un groupe de quarante-six organisations sans but lucratif (OSBL) albertaines dans cet environnement riche en information. La communication portera sur les modèles de présence des OSBL dans les médias sociaux et les liens avec les structures organisationnelles.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Marie-Goreth Nduwayo ◽  
Michel Sayumwe

<p><em>The crisis that Burundi has experienced since October 1993 has led to the emergence of new associative mechanisms at the initiative of Burundian citizens around the same adventure: that of microcredit. Far from being a fad, microcredit has been the single source of financing for poor citizens by enabling them to engage in income-generating activities. For this, beneficiaries who are for the most part without material guarantee must not only group themselves in associations, but also align themselves with the constraints of the lessor. According to the theory of contingency, any organization can increase its performance to the extent that its strategy is in harmony with its environment. Our analysis considers the issue of strategic alignment from a new angle. We conclude that the adjustment of the NPOs members to the modalities of granting loans enables them to benefit from Microfinance Institutions which help to reach their main objectives and to promote a real organizational efficiency.</em><em></em></p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 1399-1414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Vézina ◽  
Majdi Ben Selma ◽  
Marie Claire Malo

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the organising of social innovation in a large market-based social enterprises from the perspective of dynamic capabilities and social transformation.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyses the process by which Desjardins Group launched the Desjardins Environment Fund as the first investment fund in North America to integrate environmental screening. It uses longitudinal single case analysis and a theoretical framework based on Teece’s three dynamic capabilities.FindingsResults show that dynamic capabilities can be conceived as stages in the process of social innovation. Sensing refers to the capability to identify a societal demand for social transformation. Seizing capability is about shaping societal demand into a commercial offer. Reconfiguring concerns organisational innovation to integrate actual and new knowledge through innovative routines. Microprocesses of both path dependency and path building are in action at each of the three stages.Practical implicationsThis paper shows that managing dynamic capabilities is central to social innovation in the context of a large social business and provides genuine managerial input via an analysis of the microprocesses at work in the social innovation process.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the operationalization of Teece’s dynamic capabilities model. In mobilising a framework in the field of management of innovation, it contributes to the understanding of the process of social innovation and develops the organisational mechanism for multiscalarity of social innovation as a condition for social transformation.


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