Asian Research Thesis Index

Abstract

This research focuses on generating an in-depth understanding of social innovation process from the perspective of sectoral system of innovation (SSI). It addresses knowledge gaps derived from a systematic literature review and exhibits novelty by linking social innovation process with sectoral system of innovation as demonstrated in the conceptual framework. Moreover, four research objectives and twelve research questions have been formulated mainly focusing on the building blocks of social innovation process theory that is the six stages and the SSI theory particularly the elements and structure, along with important factors that influence the process. This study is empirically rooted in the context of public sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Pakistan. Taking influence from pragmatism as its underlying research paradigm, case study strategy along with exploratory sequential mixed methods design has been used. Accordingly, the research questions dominated the researcher’s approach towards data collection and analysis including their design and implementation. Following a multiple case and holistic design, three separate but very important cases that is, social innovation projects have been selected. These include (a) Independent Monitoring Unit (IMU), (b) Sehat Ka Insaf (SKI) and (c) Mobile Court (MC). A case study protocol has been applied to increase reliability.  Research findings reveal that social innovations take place in the form of new services addressing social needs and creating public value. The stages of social innovation process initially occur in a linear and later in a non-linear sequence, with overlapping spaces. However, these social innovations do not fully go through all stages of the process specifically sustainability (except in one case) and systemic change (in all the cases). The elements and structure of sectoral system including actors, knowledge base, technologies, learning processes, resources, demand, formal and informal institutions, and interactions facilitate the prompts, inspirations and diagnoses, proposals of ideas, prototyping and pilots, and scaling and diffusion of social innovation but interestingly do not facilitate it during the sustaining stage. Moreover, a comprehensive list of 44 important factors that influence the social innovation process has been developed through a rigorous process and presented in the form of a unique taxonomy that can prove to be very useful for policy makers when designing future interventions. This research also offers a number of other theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions along with recommendations.

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