Social innovations address social needs and manage societal challenges. However, many social needs, in reality, go back to the social, cultural and institutional contexts and systems in which they arise. This leads to the discussion of treating symptoms versus addressing the root causes, compensating for adverse changes in society versus contributing to social progress. Considering the complexity of social problems and societal challenges, on the one hand, social innovators may also address larger structural issues. On the other hand, this need for extensive efforts leads to complexity and unpredictability of possible works. SI-DRIVE estimates that only one-third of social innovations are aimed at systemic change. How can social innovations change the system and how does the system change them in the process?
To provide answers from SI-DRIVE evidence, there are stories of at least two concepts about social innovation and its relation to the social system: one based on levels of intervention and the other based on loops between structure and agency. In this article, we describe each perspective and finally integrate them into a model (Agency-Result-Structure model) that integrates agency, outcomes and structure and introduces similarities between elements. This model outlines a dual strategy in which bottom-up approaches simultaneously solve problems and develop the agency of social innovators and clients, while top-down approaches support political and military frameworks as well as attitudes and methods. They create life and work.
Development in three social levels
Social innovations seek to provide useful results that directly address societal challenges such as climate change, disparities and poverty, labor market and employment issues, deficiencies in health and education systems, and demographic issues such as aging and migration. According to BEPA, there are three types of societal levels where social innovations may bring beneficial results:
A level of social demand that addresses specific issues faced by specific groups in areas not traditionally covered by the market or existing institutions and that typically have greater impacts on vulnerable people than others. This is usually seen on a small scale.
The level of societal challenges that address challenges that affect people on a larger societal scale or across sectors. These challenges usually arise through complex combinations of social, economic, environmental and cultural factors and require the creation of new connections between social factors. These are usually seen at the average level.
The level of system change that requires fundamental changes in the way society functions, its institutions and agents, for example, changing governance structures and creating collaborative spaces where compliance and learning are both sources and outcomes of well-being. This is usually seen on a large scale.
This hierarchical representation of levels provides a useful classification of the outcomes and goals of social innovations and provides a simple model of the relationship between social innovation and social change. However, the show tends to have a somewhat linear, factionalistic and perhaps overly simplistic view of society. This tendency focuses on changes that are conscious and initially of value to participants and clients, and ultimately to society as a whole, and ignores complexities and unintended consequences.
Three levels of SI-Drive
An analysis of the stated goals of SI-DRIVE’s social innovation cases, when mapped onto the three levels of BEPA, leads to the following patterns (see diagram for BEPA levels addressed by SI-DRIVE):
Social demand is considered in 70% of cases; Health and social care, and poverty reduction and sustainable development, have the greatest impact at this level.
Community challenges have been addressed in 61% of cases; The environment and energy supply have the greatest impact here.
Systemic change is considered in 32% of cases; Education and environment have the greatest influence here.
Although all three levels are well represented, it is clear that most social innovation focuses on the lower two levels. Almost half of all cases (45.5%) considered more than one level, and 17.6% addressed all three levels. However, these results refer to the goals stated in the social innovations and not to their actual results, as the available information does not provide evidence of the results or how to achieve them.
Although systemic change generally plays a smaller role than lower levels, there are differences in the importance of all three levels across the seven policy areas of SI-DRIVE. For example, in the field of health (83%) and poverty reduction and sustainable development (78%), most social innovations address a social need. In both policy contexts, social innovations clearly meet the real and concrete needs and demands of individuals and small groups at the local level. On the contrary, in the field of environment (72%) and energy supply (87%), the focus is more on fighting societal challenges, which is due to the emphasis on climate and environment issues in the priorities of the United Nations and the European Union at the level Medium matches. Items in education (48%) and environment (46%) strongly refer to large-scale systemic change. This is interesting and may again point to political agendas and declarative priorities, but may also be indicative of current institutional and systemic deficiencies in providing solutions in these areas, leaving room for social innovation to have a higher impact. The level of systemic change is less important for employment (19%), transport and development (20%) and energy supply (25%). Therefore, different policy fields focus more or less on the systemic goals of social innovations, but this approach still does not show the real relationships between these levels, if such relationships exist.
From social levels to its circles
Social scientists and historians argue that social and systemic change is often not simply about addressing a set of social challenges. Social change is multidimensional, complex, and the result of multiple related and synchronized actions, learning styles, conflicts, tensions, and multiple forms of cooperation and compromise, each of which can lead to intended or unintended consequences. Social innovations interact with their societal contexts in many ways. In short, elements of “community” such as social, individual and group operations, cognitive and evaluative frameworks enter social innovations and also derive from them. In this way, these changed or changing social operations, agents, cognitive frameworks and variable evaluations form the results of social innovations.
To examine the relationships and dynamics between social innovations and societal contexts and between levels of analysis, social theories provide a useful distinction between agency and structure:
Structure: The periodic arrangement of rules and resources, habits, rituals, institutions, and cognitive frameworks that influence or constrain the decisions and opportunities available to social agents.
Agency: the capacity of individuals and groups to understand structures, act against them, reason and make choices.
In this view, structure and agency are complementary forces. Structure simultaneously constrains and enables human activities, and humans are able to replicate or change the social structures in which they live, however this usually requires collective action on a relatively large scale and time.
Therefore, social change is two-sided and multi-level, with continuous changes and loops between the two sides. Social innovations change their institutional, social, and cognitive environment through the agency of all involved, while their related environment—through structures and institutions—changes the social innovation. These two logical approaches are in a tense and narrow field. For example, public policy “can be understood as a product of interrelationships between institutions, social networks, and cognitive frameworks, while [social innovation] seeks to change the dynamics of its context or related contexts.” This is one possible explanation for the limited aspirations of SI-DRIVE cases to engage with systemic change: current policies are likely to select and support social innovations in which they operate that are not substantially different from the context in which they operate; Often at the cost of limiting the ideals and potential positive effects of social innovations.
Mechanisms of social change: communication between levels and circles through structure and agency
The SI-DRIVE project examines nine specific mechanisms by which social change occurs. These mechanisms have various roots in structural-functional, evolutionary, and conflict social theories, but they provide constructive concepts for analyzing and comparing cases. They can also be mapped onto three levels of analysis:
Input and Process Mechanisms: Learning, change and selection are considered input and process mechanisms and tend to focus primarily on innovators and clients and on addressing societal needs at the micro level. These help develop the agency and trustworthy individuals.
Driver Mechanisms: Conflict, tension/adaptation, competition and cooperation are the mechanisms that drive social innovation. They tend to focus on addressing the meso level of organizations, embedded networks and behaviors, and communications and interactions between agents.
Structural mechanisms include how innovations (including technology) diffuse, the role of other complementary innovations to social innovation, as well as planning and institutional change. They tend to focus broadly on underlying structures and root causes, and are therefore at the macro level of systemic change.
From social levels to its circles
Social scientists and historians argue that social and systemic change is often not simply about addressing a set of social challenges. Social change is multidimensional, complex, and the result of multiple related and synchronized actions, learning styles, conflicts, tensions, and multiple forms of cooperation and compromise, each of which can lead to intended or unintended consequences. Social innovations interact with their societal contexts in many ways. In short, elements of “community” such as social, individual and group operations, cognitive and evaluative frameworks enter social innovations and also derive from them. In this way, these changed or changing social operations, agents, cognitive frameworks and variable evaluations form the results of social innovations.
To examine the relationships and dynamics between social innovations and societal contexts and between levels of analysis, social theories provide a useful distinction between agency and structure:
Structure: The periodic arrangement of rules and resources, habits, rituals, institutions, and cognitive frameworks that influence or constrain the decisions and opportunities available to social agents.
Agency: the capacity of individuals and groups to understand structures, act against them, reason and make choices.
In this view, structure and agency are complementary forces. Structure simultaneously constrains and enables human activities, and humans are able to replicate or change the social structures in which they live, however this usually requires collective action on a relatively large scale and time.
Therefore, social change is two-sided and multi-level, with continuous changes and loops between the two sides. Social innovations change their institutional, social, and cognitive environment through the agency of all involved, while their related environment—through structures and institutions—changes the social innovation. These two logical approaches are in a tense and narrow field. For example, public policy “can be understood as a product of interrelationships between institutions, social networks, and cognitive frameworks, while [social innovation] seeks to change the dynamics of its context or related contexts.” This is one possible explanation for the limited aspirations of SI-DRIVE cases to engage with systemic change: current policies are likely to select and support social innovations in which they operate that are not substantially different from the context in which they operate; Often at the cost of limiting the ideals and potential positive effects of social innovations.
Mechanisms of social change: communication between levels and circles through structure and agency
The SI-DRIVE project examines nine specific mechanisms by which social change occurs. These mechanisms have various roots in structural-functional, evolutionary, and conflict social theories, but they provide constructive concepts for analyzing and comparing cases. They can also be mapped onto three levels of analysis:
Input and Process Mechanisms: Learning, change and selection are considered input and process mechanisms and tend to focus primarily on innovators and clients and on addressing societal needs at the micro level. These help develop the agency and trustworthy individuals.
Driver Mechanisms: Conflict, tension/adaptation, competition and cooperation are the mechanisms that drive social innovation. They tend to focus on addressing the meso level of organizations, embedded networks and behaviors, and communications and interactions between agents.
Structural mechanisms include how innovations (including technology) diffuse, the role of other complementary innovations to social innovation, as well as planning and institutional change. They tend to focus broadly on underlying structures and root causes, and are therefore at the macro level of systemic change.
Integration of surfaces and loops
In analyzing the more detailed cases of SI-DRIVE social innovations, there is a “pattern that can be generalized: successful and scalable social innovations, especially with their adaptability and connections (in a non-technical sense) to institutional as well as cultural and value environments” are self-defined. This implies a gradual increase. For example, as social innovators secure support, attract stakeholders, and build networks, they may reduce or eliminate features of their social innovations that are more disruptive or transformative. (…) It seems that there is a balance between the possibilities of local, specific and targeted social innovations and institutional adaptation, unless development policies from above deliberately open and support spaces for creating and maintaining diversity”.
Based on these insights, BEPA’s three-level model of micro, meso, and macro can be integrated with social theory of structure and agency and with mechanisms of social change through SI-DRIVE empirical evidence.
BEPA’s triad of social demand, community challenges, and systemic change corresponds to the micro, meso, and macro levels of social analysis, which refer to individuals and social groups, organizations and institutions, and communities or social systems. At each level and between levels, social structure and agency interact—and, indeed, this is how social demands, community challenges, and systemic change arise. However, agency appears to be more pronounced at the micro- and meso-levels, while the level of systemic change is credibly constituted by fatter, or at least more stable, social structures. A more agency-focused interpretation is that existing and self-interested institutional or policy factors limit social innovations at levels of meeting needs and addressing challenges, but do not fear or avoid interacting with systemic root causes.
A model of agency-results-structure
Whether these effects are system- or power-related, exploring the relationships between levels and mechanisms of social change produces a set of possible strategies for social innovation:
A micro-level strategy for creating agency, which examines the symptoms of community needs and challenges of land infrastructure mainly from a bottom-up perspective and directly engages stakeholders in meeting their own needs.
Meso-level strategy between agency (micro-level) and institutional structure (macro-level) through the creation of appropriate organizations, networks or forms of cooperation, which consciously link agency and structure, by focusing on the pursuit of social innovation goals to produce real results. and pleasant
A macro-level strategy for changing institutional or systemic structures by dealing with the (root) causes of societal needs and challenges mainly from a top-down perspective, and changing the framework structures that often create the need in the first place.
Social innovations are originally designed and implemented to meet social needs, solve problems and face societal challenges. These strategies can complement each other to encourage and benefit from full innovation empowerment for the entire community. A bicultural strategy first builds, predominantly from the top, existing societal structures or supports that range from formal policy and regulatory frameworks to softer issues of governance and appropriate systems of thought, belief, and way of life/work. Secondly, new forms of participation and cooperation, co-creation and user enterprise, empowerment and human resources are developed. This reflexive complementarity to the agency-structure distinction comes, however, in a processual way: social innovations must develop both agency and structures effective for their development, which in the process may produce or change their social innovations. Currently, social innovations are more focused on the micro-level of meeting social needs and solving local problems, and multi-level strategies can eventually circumvent institutional blockages and indirectly bring about systemic changes.
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