“What is social innovation?” is a question that has plagued me for months. Each time I try to explain what I research, my mind skims through the intricacies of a definition that is neither precise nor finite in scope. In interviews in Singapore and throughout Taiwan and over the last four months, I have asked social entrepreneurs their definition of social enterprise, and social innovation. Here’s my latest conclusion: it doesn’t really matter.
Each foundation, social enterprise, or funding agency I have interviewed has defined social innovation in the positive; no one has decidedly excluded an organisation or group from their view of social innovation. The definition of social entrepreneurship has been more precise, favouring a focus on financial sustainability (“a capitalist mind and a socialist heart” in the words of entrepreneur Priya Chen from Aurora Social Enterprise Co), but most people still give open and growing definitions of a field, sector and way of thinking that is expansive in its ambition to tackle pressing social problems. Amid this lack of clarity on definitional issues, examining whom social innovations serve is perhaps a more important way of analysing social innovation capacity: it shows you who is empowered to solve social problems within a local economy. Does social innovation happen with government, non-profit organisations, or members of the marginalised communities themselves?
Here in Taiwan, social innovation and social enterprise seem to concentrate on specific thematic issues, predominantly employment, disability inclusion and matters related to aboriginal communities, rather than taking place in one specific sector. However, it’s hard to tell whether the prevalence of social innovations in these areas is because of truly innovative solutions stemming from those sectors, or is the result of prevalent subsidies. Indeed, the availability of subsidies in those areas could also be considered a kind of social innovation, because they empower those with a vested interest in crafting and delivering a solution. The role of government policy and funding in dictating where social innovation takes place can be significant in the absence of a strong pool of social entrepreneurs.
In Singapore, many of the most prominent social enterprises do not focus on issues facing exclusively Singapore. Many organisations, like the World Toilet Organisation, are global in their reach. However, Jack Sim, the dynamic founder of WTO, began his work focused on what he noticed as an issue in Singapore before extending his mandate and forming the WTO. Perhaps, then, what is unique about Singapore is not the nature of its social challenges or marginalised communities, but that its ecosystem and economy are structured to be outward-facing and conducive to growth. It is easier to imagine this sort of structure functioning in a city-state of five million people than a country with greater size and population.
The differences in whom social innovations serve in different environments makes the lack of standard definition meaningful: with one definition, it might be easier to unify people working within or across similar subject matter, but more difficult to unify those working under different constraints and in different environments. In South Korea, the Leveraging Social Enterprise Act quantitatively evaluates social enterprises, and businesses cannot use the moniker without being registered. There may be some value in such an approach to limit the novelty of “social enterprise” as a buzzword (if not as a technical understanding of the sector); five years ago, “international” was the buzzword among organisations and government ministries. Now “innovation” has taken the helm – a desirable word to describe oneself, yet a difficult one to measure against.
By repeatedly asking what social innovation is, I’ve seen that the best social innovations and the social entrepreneurs behind them all have laser-sharp focus on their end users and solving their pains, and that they prize financial sustainability so they can keep doing it. Precise definitions and tailored taxation models might be helpful, but they’re not critical to identify effectively and leverage social enterprise opportunities, and are not what will inspire the next generation of change makers.
So how do we harness the ambiguity of social innovation? Governments could begin by making it easier for innovation entities – social enterprises, social purpose businesses, revenue-generating non-profits and innovation entities within larger organizations – to have the flexibility they need to succeed. Social innovators need to continue drawing outside the lines without being placed in government-approved buckets that do not accurately capture the type of work they do. Practitioners can begin to talk about social innovation in terms of metrics, such as community engagement and sustainability, and the media and academics can spend less time glorifying organisations for merely associating with “innovation” and praise real efforts toward testing new financial model and learning sharing between organisations.
So, after all the questioning, it turns out that I don’t care about the definition. Please, join the “social innovation” bandwagon. But there should be standardised metrics, there should be reporting, and we should begin to see social innovation in terms of the communities they serve and not just how its defined.
Melinda Jacobs is a co-founder of the social innovation research group, which is developing a series of in-depth case studies on why social innovation succeeds and fails in Taiwan
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Social innovation: lessons from Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan
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