The Role of Digital Technology in Scaling Social Innovations

Objective: social innovation plays a crucial role in addressing social challenges, but innovation initiatives can be remote and short-term. Scalability is essential for expanding the impact of these solutions, thus making it critical to investigate the factors that may contribute to this process. A...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Julhete Mignoni, Claudia Cristina Bitencourt Bitencourt, Gabriela Zanandrea, Ana Luiza Rossato Facco
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração (ANPAD) 2024-11-01
Series:BAR: Brazilian Administration Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://bar.anpad.org.br/index.php/bar/article/view/673
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objective: social innovation plays a crucial role in addressing social challenges, but innovation initiatives can be remote and short-term. Scalability is essential for expanding the impact of these solutions, thus making it critical to investigate the factors that may contribute to this process. A promising approach to enhancing the scalability of social innovations lies in the use of digital technology. The objective of this study was to understand how digital technologies contribute to scale social innovations. Methods: we conducted a qualitative multiple case study that analyzed three social innovation initiatives. Results: our key contributions include: (1) identifying different types of digital technology that can be applied in the social context; (2) providing evidence that scaling out, scaling up, and scaling deep can occur simultaneously and reinforce one another; (3) understanding the role of technology in scaling social innovations by facilitating operationalization, strengthening trust, and building relationships and network engagement. Conclusions: it is expected that the results and contributions will foster reflections on the importance of establishing a digital infrastructure that favors initiatives aimed at solving societal challenges.
ISSN:1807-7692