Open Social Innovation

Three public European case studies are presented as an evaluation of a preliminary test of an adapted questionnaire to measure open social innovation. Findings include the differences and similarities between public and private performance. Public practitioners integrate these experiences later than private. The reasons for engaging in open innovation are different: whereas improving citizens´ relationships is the major public reason, creating partnerships is the private driver. Finally, technologies help open innovation in both public and private cases. Furthermore, it may be concluded that there is a lack of open social innovation professionals that leads to a barrier in the development of these policies in the public sector.

Smart Territory Initiatives in an Emerging Economy

In the last years, a sense of urgency for cities to become more livable and sustainable has arisen due to the expected increase in their population. This chapter describes different initiatives taking place in the city of Chihuahua in Mexico, using the framework developed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with four dimensions: 1) Infrastructure for connectivity; 2) Sensors; 3) Integrated command and operations center; and 4) Communications technology. For each one of them, a description of the activities or projects is provided, along with a final SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats) analysis.

Social Innovation as a New Social Policy Tool for Regional Government Institutions in Smart Territories

By aiming at improving social welfare and well-being, social policies, social innovation, and smart territories are closely related to each other. Local authorities are in direct contact with citizens and regional needs, which makes them an important actor in overcoming challenges ranging from housing, spare-time activities to education to improving democratic standards. There are many successful examples of social innovations, including FixMyStreet.com, participatory budgeting, and Open Government Vienna, which are supported by local governments that can contribute to the formation of smart cities and territories. By elaborating related examples from various perspectives, this chapter highlights the relation between social policy, social innovation, and smart cities.

Regional Impact of Innovation

Since the 1980s, a great deal of research has been carried out regarding endogenous economic growth. The focus has been specially put on the triangle of relationships among growth, territories, and innovation, and concepts as means of technological innovation have been extensively studied. In this context, this chapter does not pursue to enhance theoretical knowledge on this topic, but, on the contrary, it intends to remark conclusions previously reached by contrasting them with the implementation of a specific innovation policy program. To achieve this objective, an analysis is made of the European Union programme to foster R&D called Horizon 2020 (H2020). Also, it shows the case of an H2020 Project from the 2015 call, applying an impact assessment analysis.

Qualitative Analysis of Learning Territorial Planning

This chapter addresses the management process of the Regulator Program of Melipilla district in Chile in 1988–2016. Evidence indicates that territorial planning processes are rare in decision-makers, as they are in favor of a technocratic logic focused on quantitative metrics, rather than in qualitative or processional analyses, such as organizational learning. To this end, the qualitative analysis in this study sought to capture the perceptions of some of its actors regarding issues such as citizen participation, technical management, and political management of this instrument. The fieldwork consisted of the application of in-depth interviews of actors involved at different stages of their implementation from a multi-level approach. It is concluded that the process of updates to this planning instrument was strongly associated with political issues with little strategic vision for the future, precarious levels of citizen participation, and an absolute shortage of organizational learnings into the process.

Citizen Perceptions and Support for Smart City Projects

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) applied to territories leads to the phenomenon of “Smart City.” The goal of a smart project is to use technology to manage all of the issues of a city (mobility, heritage, environmental, safety, and health services) in a more sustainable, livable, and efficient way, which will result in improving the citizens' quality of life. To know how the individuals perceive and evaluate these smart initiatives, we surveyed 525 citizens of Santander, a city in Spain that has developed a smart city project. As a result, we found that the citizens who are more familiar with smart cities are more likely to perceive that these types of projects have positive economic, cultural, environmental, and reputational impacts for the towns. This group of citizens also has a more positive attitude toward smart cities, assesses more favorably the brand equity of the smart project under investigation, and shows higher support for it.

The Importance of Intellectual Capital for the Sustainable Growth of Regions

In the knowledge economy era, the importance of intellectual capital as the source of value creation has been well recognized in theory and practice. Only those countries, regions, organizations, and individuals who understand the significance of intellectual resources can improve their performances in the long run. Hence, this chapter aims to investigate the importance of intellectual potentials for the sustainable development of regions. The main contribution of this chapter is the presented methodological framework for measuring the intellectual performance of regions. Additionally, this study provides empirical research regarding regions in the Republic of Serbia. The obtained results can be a good starting point for policymakers in designing regional development strategies and policies.

The Role of Smart City Solutions on the Road to Smart Territories

The concept of a smart city has emerged with the help of developing technologies against population growth, increasing urbanization rates, and rapidly depleting resources. The integration of information and communication technologies, which are the basis of the concept of a smart city, with the urban planning processes and effective use of region-specific resources are essential for the sustainability of cities. The creation of the Smart Territories, which will be the lead of smart, sustainable cities, is also directly linked to such intelligent solutions to urban problems and smart citizens. Because it is vital to be a self-sufficient structure that does urban planning by considering climatic data and develops solutions with data mining within the framework of local needs, the importance of solving the priority urban problems such as environmental management, efficient use of resources, and sustainable urban transportation with the help of rapidly developing information technologies should be emphasized on the road to smart territories.

Challenges in the Informal Sector

Owing to the highly competitive and volatile business environment, companies in the West African markets face significant challenges. This study was conducted to examine the challenges faced in the marketplace in Ghana by successful entrepreneurs. Accra was intentionally sampled for the analysis of four successful entrepreneurs from the Makola market. Findings revealed that access to finance, high competition, instability in macroeconomic indicators, poor management competences, lack of skilled labor and deficiencies in marketing strategies are the major factors confronting the survival of entrepreneurs in the marketplace. The results provide insights into the important and current challenges facing entrepreneurs in the informal sectors. Recommendations were made to help overcome the challenges faced by business people in their operations.

To Examine Women Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

In the past few decades, the concept of social entrepreneurship has emerged as a popular area of research study and practice. However, despite women social entrepreneurs showing great potentials through a reduced gender gap in social entrepreneurship unlike commercial entrepreneurship where the gender gap is found to be high, not much literature is available on women's social entrepreneurial ventures. This study is an attempt to fill up this gap through a review of prior literature on the field of social entrepreneurship. By reviewing the existing literature, the author draws a comparison between social entrepreneurship and women social entrepreneurship, then examines the success factors in women's social entrepreneurship and also discusses the challenges. To build-up the link between the literature and practice two real case studies are presented in support of the discussed theoretical inputs. Finally, limitations and future research areas are discussed.