Corporate Social Innovation in Developing Countries

Although corporate social innovation studies in developing countries acknowledge the importance of firm resources and capabilities for attaining social goals, they overlook the way in which these interact with broader institutions to generate successful outcomes. We address this gap by exploring the relationship between firm resources-capabilities and institutions that is conducive to meeting both business and social interests in developing countries. By employing a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of corporate social innovation projects performed by joint ventures of Dutch SMEs and their local partners in developing countries, we show that firm resources and/or capabilities complement strong institutions in these countries. Corporate social innovation can also be facilitated by firm capabilities in running highly legitimate projects that substitute institutional voids in these economies, attesting to multiple paths that corporations can take to achieve social innovation.

Corporate Social Innovation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Given that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented scenario, there were no previous lessons learned about the organizational responses to social problems. As a result of the above, this chapter describes the practices used by seven Colombian organizations to face the first months of the pandemic based on corporate social innovation framework. A qualitative approach was used to carry out the study and a qualitative content analysis as a research method. The results obtained indicate that the companies participating in the research developed actions in the four pillars, with actions associated with social issues being more prevalent, especially concerning workers and vulnerable populations.