How can businesses encourage and support social innovation in their organisations, and what are the benefits of doing so?

Innovation
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• Join forces in a determined topic. In Portugal for example we launched in 2017 the Inclusive Community Forum that aims to promote inclusion of people with disabilities. +50 companies have signed a commitment to include more people with disabilities in their workforce; recruiting companies opened teams to support businesses in including people with disabilities + 10 partners /donors; 2 councils to test and sound-board what we have been doing:+100 family members +100 companies and other institutions; The project also focuses in the bridge between education and the job market for people with disabilities, and with a systemic approach created different solutions that we are now institutionalizing some projects in other relevant stakeholders. More: Overview

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  1. Embrace not-knowing and vulnerability. What got you here won’t get you there. Leading with humility, not-knowing and curiosity seems counter-cultural today, but is just the tonic.

  2. Think further ahead. If you’re planning ahead to the next month’s targets, or the next quarter. Or even next year – you’re doing it wrong. What will the customers, the team, the suppliers, and society need of you in 5, 10, 15 years? And how can you work backwards from there

  3. Harness the ideas, passion and talent you already have. So many wonderful employees will have so much to offer if they feel they are welcomed, psychologically safe and encouraged to speak up with their ideas and their energy.

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Look outside your sector; cross-sector partnerships can be win-win, particularly between corporations and social enterprises. In essence, the barriers faced by social enterprises and corporations in scaling sustainability are two sides of the same coin: social enterprises have innovative approaches but not the resources, and corporations have the resources but not necessarily the innovative approaches.

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I believe, in the spirit of businesses providing resources and funding, there should be an aim on education and reaching younger audience before they jump into the business whelm. It seems that one of the bigger hindrances that stands between intent and its translation into action entails a lack of awareness to the impact on both the business and the cause. If newer generations are informed of the power of businesses, and the future of collaboration in creating social impact, long-term change would be most effectively incorporated. This could include collaborating with educational institutions.

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Absolutely, I have also seen the upward trend for family businesses and MSMEs who include social innovation than otherwise businesses, they go upwards fast but find difficult to sustain that scale.

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If businesses are interested in social innovation they need to acknowledge the term is from the social sector and is based off problem-solving for communities. Collaborating with the problem solvers within communities, or who are on the front lines of the problem means working to innovate. It starts by acknowledging that the problem solvers are not always businesses but that they can be part of the solution

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Build bridges between sectors and people: In the social leapfrog Program - a 3 year program for social organizations that are using business to create more impact in their social missions - we identify mentors and coaches that can support the leaders of the organization, we place students advising and solving strategy, marketing, HR and other major challenges; we include our community in brainstorming news sources of revenues, we involve students clubs in designing new business models, we match the organizations with companies and investors with common interests… In the end we have built an amazing community of +1400 people contributing to 26 social organizations in Portugal, and the 4th edition is soon to be born. More here: Social Leapfrog Program

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Leveraging the power of the different available markets. Through corporate/business innovation companies can identify new, underserved markets to expand to and community engagement in service and good delivery, it is how business engage with the environment be it internal or external (culture) and how they identify and solve problems they are faced with. These can be either within local markets or in emerging economies. By leveraging these markets, organizations can serve unmet needs with new products or services.

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As a representative of a global learning community, I agree and see centring meaningful collaboration as central to suporting social innovation in businesses.

  1. Promote knowledge sharing and capacity building through respository of ideas (but do need to battle around the desire for each to protect data and their own ideas) Creating platforms for sharing best practices, case studies, and research on social innovation can help businesses learn from each other.
  2. Create funding mechanisms that incentivise collaboration across sectors: E.g. collaborative accelerators / hackathons/ middle ground spaces that are not ‘competitive’ (e.g. institutions with different target audience).
  3. Celebrate successes and fauilures of social innovation through learning circles, collaborative events and shared spaces: Recognizing and celebrating social innovation successes can inspire others and create a positive momentum for further social innovation efforts. On the same token, ‘celebrating failure’ spaces that are geared towards sharing experiences of what hasnt worked.
  4. Push for a long-term, iterative perspective: Encouraging businesses to adopt a long-term view : giving space for collaborative research and reflection on social innovation (e.g. collaboratories between research and entrepeneurship?)
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Since we are focusing on working better together to encourage and support social innovation, I would love for everyone to check out the TRANSFORM Support Hub: An on-demand acceleration platform scaling sustainable and equitable business models of the future – for social enterprises, corporations, and the people working within them.

It is a path-breaking, multisectoral partnership, bringing together the BEST of offerings made available by the public, private, and social sectors to support the social entrepreneurship ecosystem.

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112

At least when it comes to applying a gender lens to unlock innovation, businesses should first take a look at internal biases and misconceptions. It can help to have a gender expert conduct a training session on the value of gender inclusivity and how it can be designed. This should be followed by a diagnostic exercise that involves talking to women stakeholders about the issues they face and some ways they get around these, if at all. Companies should then have brainstorming sessions to understand the data collected from the diagnostic exercise and work to understand what potential solutions can be developed and what resources can be applied to them. In our research, the companies conducted pilots and collected data to understand the impacts of the pilot and make decisions on integrating the pilot into operations. We’ve created a how-to guide and shared lessons from implementing gender inclusivity in your operations - see page 26.

I also want to share other resources that can be used during diagnostics and brainstorming on social innovations:

  1. HCD & behavioural science primer
  2. Equity-centered design thinking
  3. Gender transformation toolkit for unlocking gender inclusivity innovations
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The Youth Cafe Youth Mobile Clinic was a social-health innovation where we identified mental health issues affected our target population (youths) and we crowdfunded and crowdsourced
after sharing our innovation with our membership pool. More here: Health Innovation, Seed Funding, Global Youth Innovations

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Good example, @Moses_Wamari!
Carla Holder SHERPA Institute Research Director, UN SDG Corporate Guidebooks.

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We must amplify our voices especially now that we are seeing a pushback on social impact driven progress in the business space. Highlight this misconception of assuming that profit and social progress are unavoidably at odds with each other. This has contributed to a limited mindset when it comes to business practices. However, research has shown that both profit and social progress can coexist and thrive together. By broadening our perspective and focusing on growth, we can create space for business to prioritize social responsibility alongside financial success.
A multifaceted approach that fosters collaboration among different stakeholders discussed in the comments are crucial for promoting and enabling social innovation within businesses.

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Some provoking questions: when debating intersection of business and social impact are we not using concepts and terms, concepts that are too broad and difficult to implement b? What exactly means social innovation in the context of private sector? When we are talking about businesses which sizes, industries, sectors are we referring to?
The above is to try to underline the importance of the danger of comparing apple and pears. Maybe we should try to use more the existing ESG frameworks in our discussions. And maybe start by ensuring that companies have all to report following materiality and concepts that are similar across the globe and industries. As it is the case of financial accounting. To ensure we all speak the same language. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive of the EU is trying to do that. It is worth checking it out. And discuss the power of regulation to push companies towards innovation on the S of ESG.

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Thanks for joining us today, everyone. We’ll leave this discussion open so that you can continue to post your thoughts. We’ll be pulling together a summary that we’ll post in the introduction to this discussion.

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First of all, introducing social innovation in developing countries presents various challenges to businesses, such as a lack of resources, limited local knowledge, regulatory constraints, political instability and conflict, and infrastructural limitations. However, businesses can overcome these limitations by partnering with local organizations, investing in capacity building measures, and focusing on sustainable solutions that meet local needs.

The benefits of encouraging and supporting social innovation in businesses are several. First, promoting social innovation creates opportunities for businesses to bring in new and innovative solutions to address challenging social problems. This, in turn, can lead to business growth and the expansion of operations in target markets. Second, participating in social innovation activities can improve the company’s corporate social responsibility reputation. This, in turn, can attract new customers and investors who support socially responsible brands. Finally, social innovation drives collaboration and partnerships with local communities, industry partners, and governments, fostering a sense of relationship building and trust.

Thus for the developing countries context the most crucial are the following three ways;

  1. Partnership: Businesses can partner with local organizations, governments, and communities to identify local development challenges and co-create innovative solutions. These collaborations can help businesses gain a deeper understanding of the local context and gain the trust of the community.

  2. Investment: Businesses can invest in social enterprises and startups that are focused on creating innovative solutions to social problems. This provides financial support and helps to create jobs and opportunities in the community.

  3. Capacity Building: Businesses can invest in capacity building initiatives that educate and upskill individuals and organizations within the community on social innovation. This supports the development of local talent with relevant skills and knowledge to advance social innovation.