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Social Innovations as Drivers of Social Change — Exploring Tarde’s Contribution to Social Innovation Theory Building

Social Innovations as Drivers of Social Change — Exploring Tarde’s Contribution to Social Innovation Theory Building

  • Jürgen Howaldt,
  • Ralf Kopp &
  • Michael Schwarz 
  • Chapter
  • Open Access
  • First Online: 27 January 2016

  • 24k Accesses

  • 28 Citations

Abstract

In the context of seemingly intractable social challenges such as climate change, environmental destruction, youth unemployment and social exclusion, social innovation has emerged as a potentially sustainable solution. It is often assumed that social innovation can lead to social change (see, for example, Cooperrider and Pasmore, 1991; Mulgan et al., 2007; BEPA, 2010). However, the relationship between social innovation and social change remains underexplored:

Rather than being used as a specifically defined specialist term with its own definable area of studies, social innovation is used more as a kind of descriptive metaphor in the context of phenomena of real world problems, social change, and the modernisation of society. (Howaldt and Schwarz, 2010, p. 49)

Keywords

  • Social Change
  • Innovation Process
  • Social Practice
  • Innovation Policy
  • Social Entrepreneurship

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Authors
  1. Jürgen Howaldt
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  2. Ralf Kopp
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  3. Michael Schwarz
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oxford, UK

    Alex Nicholls (Professor of Social Entrepreneurship) (Professor of Social Entrepreneurship)

  2. The Young Foundation, UK

    Julie Simon (Research Programme Lead) (Research Programme Lead)

  3. Nesta, UK

    Madeleine Gabriel (Principal Researcher) (Principal Researcher)

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© 2015 Jürgen Howaldt, Ralf Kopp and Michael Schwarz

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Howaldt, J., Kopp, R., Schwarz, M. (2015). Social Innovations as Drivers of Social Change — Exploring Tarde’s Contribution to Social Innovation Theory Building. In: Nicholls, A., Simon, J., Gabriel, M. (eds) New Frontiers in Social Innovation Research. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137506801_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137506801_2

  • Published: 27 January 2016

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