There are literally thousands of papers on non US social innovation. Plenty are written in English too. Have you ever tried Google Scholar?
People may have to step outside the comfort zone of their disciplinary confines to investigate this as the majority of papers written in the field are still from the Business School, dominated by Anglo Saxon management and organisational literature. But if you are prepared to look at literature from sociology, political economy, public health, politics, social policy, and so on you might find the trip worthwhile.
For example, here is the wonderful material developed as a result of the WILCO project in Europe:
Utterly ridiculous - in the UK alone, there is the Third Sector Research Centre, the International Social Innovation Research Conference, a Social Enterprise academic Journal, never mind the work of NESTA, Young Foundation, School for Social Entrepreneurs, UnLtd, ourselves (Social Enterprise UK), Co-operatives UK, our home nations colleagues in Scotland, Northern Ireland + Wales…never mind the actual frontline practitioners.
That’s before we get on to the university courses + work coming from there - in Northampton, Goldsmiths, Bangor, Oxford (SAID Business School), Plymouth, Liverpool John Moores, Judge Business Institute and many more.
And that’s just the UK -try Social Enterprise NL (Netherlands) book on social enterprise with 20 or so Dutch case studies; or the work of British Council China cataloguing case studies from within China + outside; or the state of social enterprise report in Morocco…etc. etc. There are social enterprise, entrepreneurship and innovation networks in almost every country of the world.
There are even (*gasp*) non-Americans who have written for the SSI Review - Tris Lumley, Geoff Mulgan, Dom Potter to name a few recent social innovation thinkers.
I could go on, but I kind of agree with the commenter above. Try Google. Try stepping out of the business school paradigm.
It depends upon what you define as innovation-related literature. I believe that one needs to look beyond traditional forms of documentation (books, journal articles, papers), there is a wealth of information in the form of online repositories, and active reportage on the social enterprise/innovation sector in India, in addition to formal bodies, capacity building programmes, and conventions/events in the space. In terms of writing/reporting, check The Better India (http://www.thebetterindia.com/), Your Story (http://yourstory.com/), The Alternative (http://www.thealternative.in), The Honey Bee Network (http://www.sristi.org/hbnew/) and several, several others. In addition, impact investors, incubators, acclerators and other enables showcase their own proteges on their websites. There are several information avenues, rather than just one information superhighway. Glad to chat offline.
I am somewhat surprised too. The US is way behind the UK, Canada, Australia and a range of other countries in terms of social enterprise and social innovations. I am teaching Social Entrepreneurship at the MBA level and most of what I use comes from overseas.
Thanks for your comments, all. It’s great to see there is a lot more out there than I had come across till now (Nick, I guess I was lumping the UK in with the US as an English-speaking block, which I definitely could have made clear).
Some of these resources are really good - I especially like Wilco and the Better India and we will be utilizing them in the future. Thanks for sharing!
COMMENTS
BY Mike
ON September 8, 2014 12:01 PM
There are literally thousands of papers on non US social innovation. Plenty are written in English too. Have you ever tried Google Scholar?
People may have to step outside the comfort zone of their disciplinary confines to investigate this as the majority of papers written in the field are still from the Business School, dominated by Anglo Saxon management and organisational literature. But if you are prepared to look at literature from sociology, political economy, public health, politics, social policy, and so on you might find the trip worthwhile.
For example, here is the wonderful material developed as a result of the WILCO project in Europe:
http://www.wilcoproject.eu
BY Nick Temple
ON September 8, 2014 11:30 PM
Utterly ridiculous - in the UK alone, there is the Third Sector Research Centre, the International Social Innovation Research Conference, a Social Enterprise academic Journal, never mind the work of NESTA, Young Foundation, School for Social Entrepreneurs, UnLtd, ourselves (Social Enterprise UK), Co-operatives UK, our home nations colleagues in Scotland, Northern Ireland + Wales…never mind the actual frontline practitioners.
That’s before we get on to the university courses + work coming from there - in Northampton, Goldsmiths, Bangor, Oxford (SAID Business School), Plymouth, Liverpool John Moores, Judge Business Institute and many more.
And that’s just the UK -try Social Enterprise NL (Netherlands) book on social enterprise with 20 or so Dutch case studies; or the work of British Council China cataloguing case studies from within China + outside; or the state of social enterprise report in Morocco…etc. etc. There are social enterprise, entrepreneurship and innovation networks in almost every country of the world.
There are even (*gasp*) non-Americans who have written for the SSI Review - Tris Lumley, Geoff Mulgan, Dom Potter to name a few recent social innovation thinkers.
I could go on, but I kind of agree with the commenter above. Try Google. Try stepping out of the business school paradigm.
BY Aruna
ON September 9, 2014 01:14 AM
It depends upon what you define as innovation-related literature. I believe that one needs to look beyond traditional forms of documentation (books, journal articles, papers), there is a wealth of information in the form of online repositories, and active reportage on the social enterprise/innovation sector in India, in addition to formal bodies, capacity building programmes, and conventions/events in the space. In terms of writing/reporting, check The Better India (http://www.thebetterindia.com/), Your Story (http://yourstory.com/), The Alternative (http://www.thealternative.in), The Honey Bee Network (http://www.sristi.org/hbnew/) and several, several others. In addition, impact investors, incubators, acclerators and other enables showcase their own proteges on their websites. There are several information avenues, rather than just one information superhighway. Glad to chat offline.
BY Karin Braunsberger
ON September 11, 2014 04:03 PM
I am somewhat surprised too. The US is way behind the UK, Canada, Australia and a range of other countries in terms of social enterprise and social innovations. I am teaching Social Entrepreneurship at the MBA level and most of what I use comes from overseas.
BY Roshan Paul
ON September 14, 2014 11:47 PM
Thanks for your comments, all. It’s great to see there is a lot more out there than I had come across till now (Nick, I guess I was lumping the UK in with the US as an English-speaking block, which I definitely could have made clear).
Some of these resources are really good - I especially like Wilco and the Better India and we will be utilizing them in the future. Thanks for sharing!