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Sub-theme 50: Open Social Innovation: Exploring the Role of Time, Space, and People in Tackling Societal Challenges

Convenors:
Anne-Laure Fayard
Nova School of Business and Economics, Portugal, & New York University, USA
Thomas Gegenhuber
JKU Linz, Austria, & Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
Johanna Mair
Hertie School, Germany, & Stanford University, USA

Call for Papers

In light of the increasing complex social and environmental problems our society faces - from poverty, access to education, climate change to aging and health, there is a recognition that we need coordinated and collaborative efforts to address them. Open Social Innovation (OSI) refers to new forms of organizing bringing together actors from various sectors along the social innovation process – from identifying the problem, working and prototyping potential solutions, to scaling solutions (Fayard, forthcoming; Mair & Gegenhuber, 2021).
 
Such open social innovation efforts take multiple forms, from in-person hackathons to online challenges and crowdsourcing platforms, which have become increasingly popular over the last few years. Organizational researchers have studied OSI in the context of open innovation platforms like OpenIDEO or open social innovation projects triggered by the pandemic such as #WirvsVirus or #EUvsVirus (Bertello et al., 2021; Diriker et al., 2022; Fayard, forthcoming; Lifshitz et al., 2020; Mair & Gegenhuber, 2021; McGahan et al., 2020; Pache et al., 2022; Porter et al., 2020).
 
Building on this stream of research this sub-theme engages with current knowledge and theories at the intersection of multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral collaboration, engagement, power dynamics, social movements, open innovation, user innovation, crowdsourcing, and social innovation to examine open social innovation. As open social innovation requires orchestration of collective action to generate social impact, we are also interrogating the role of social impact orchestrators (Mair et al., 2022).
 
To stimulate generative conversations in the subtheme, we propose the dimensions of time, space and people as useful anchors for studying and theorizing open social innovation. We welcome empirical (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) or conceptual papers.
 

Time

Given the urgency required to face the multiple challenges and crisis our societies face, open social innovation needs to balance expectations and realistic assessment of time in affecting change and transformation processes. How do social impact orchestrators organizing open social innovation shape such expectations? (Wenzel et al., 2020). Moreover, in open social innovation project stakeholders across sectors jointly develop solutions to complex social problems over a period of time.
 
Some studies suggest that this might require closing of the process to some participants at specific times. However, shutting out certain participants might be perceived as illegitimate (Dobusch & Dobusch, 2019; Hautz et al., 2017; Hilbolling et al. 2021; Diriker et al. 2022). How to best structure time to nurture engagement among multiple stakeholders? Moreover, as social impact orchestrators seek to foster collaboration between different stakeholders (such as a bureaucratic public administration and a flexible citizen initiative) with different temporal horizons, they have to navigate across these different temporalities (Hilbolling et al. 2021). This raises the question of how temporal horizons shape the collaboration between different stakeholders such as public administrations and citizen initiatives.
 

Space

Open Social Innovation creates ‘flux spaces’ where actors from different societal sectors come together. Multiple studies have highlighted the generative power of spaces – e.g., coffee shops (Ellis, 2004), clubs (Furnari, 2014), or maker spaces (Anderson, 2012). Indeed, such informal spaces can trigger encounters, some turning into collaborations, between various participants with diverse backgrounds and interests. The need for spaces where diverse actors can interact and overcome their differences (Ferraro et al., 2015) is reflected by the development of concepts such as interstitial space (Furnari, 2014). Are these spaces different when it comes to developing ideas for addressing complex social issues?
 
While scholars looked at how physical and virtual spaces shape organizing dynamics (Fayard & Weeks, 2007; Haug, 2013; Kellogg, 2009; Ometto et al., 2019), we need to know more about where and how actors come together, and what might be the characteristics of spaces that trigger and/or support open social innovation. For instance, in the virtual realm, we know that the affordances of social software constrain and enable how users interact (Leonardi & Vaast, 2016) and might allow people to construct a sense of place (Fayard, 2012). Are they any specific affordances for spaces (virtual or physical) that nurture open social innovation – both in virtual and face-to-face settings? As some of open social innovation initiatives tend to increasingly combine multiple modalities (starting online and then having one or a couple of workshops; or on the contrary, starting online and then including one in-person event), how do online, offline or hybrid settings shape open social innovation processes?
 

People

Without people, there is no social innovation. Bringing people together in open social innovation is about ideas and creating communities (von Hippel, 2017). While we know quite a lot about how to organize and manage communities (e.g., Fayard & DeSanctis, 2010; Faraj et al., 2011; Reischauer & Mair, 2018; Leone et al. 2021), we need to know more about how social impact orchestrators sustain engagement and facilitate collective action from ideation to implementation.
 
In their efforts to generate impact, social change orchestrators face several critical decisions; for example, should an open social project support with limited resources support as many ideas as possible or focus on the in-depth support of a few teams (Mair et al., 2022). Such decisions also inspire to probe deeper into who might participate in an open social innovation journey. For instance, hackathons usually attract more men than women (Briscoe & Mulligan, 2014). Consequently, it is not surprising that recent research on open forms of organizing called for further research how community management considers inclusion and exclusion dynamics in such settings (Dobusch, 2021).
 

References
  • Anderson, C. (2012). Makers: The new industrial revolution. Random House.
  • Bertello, A., Bogers, M. L. A. M., & De Bernardi, P. (2021). Open innovation in the face of the COVID-19 grand challenge: insights from the Pan-European hackathon ‘EUvsVirus.’ R and D Management, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/radm.12456.
  • Briscoe, G., & Mulligan, C. (2014). Digital Innovation: The Hackathon Phenomenon. Creativeworks London, (6), 1–13.
  • Diriker, D., Porter, A. J., & Tuertscher, P. (2022). Orchestrating Open Innovation through Punctuated Openness: A process model of open organizing for tackling wicked multi-stakeholder problems. Organization Studies, 01708406221094174. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406221094174.
  • Dobusch, L. (2021). The inclusivity of inclusion approaches: A relational perspective on inclusion and exclusion in organizations. Gender, Work and Organization, 28 (1), 379–396.
  • Dobusch, L., & Dobusch, L. (2019). The Relation between Openness and Closure in Open Strategy : Programmatic and Constitutive Approaches to Openness. In D. Seidl, G. von Krogh, & R. Whittington (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108347921.020
  • Ellis, M. (2004). Pasqua Rosee's Coffee-House, 1652–1666. The London Journal, 29( 1), 1-24.
  • Fayard, A.L. (forthcoming) Open Social Innovation, Encyclopedia of Social Innovation. Eds. J. Howaldt and C. Kaletka, Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Fayard, A. L., & Weeks, J. (2007). Photocopiers and water-coolers: The affordances of informal interaction. Organization Studies, 28 (5), 605-634.
  • Fayard, A. L., & DeSanctis, G. (2010). Enacting language games: the development of a sense of ‘we- ness’ in online forums. Information Systems Journal, 20 (4), 383-416.
  • Fayard, A. L. (2012). Space Matters, But How? Physical Space, Virtual Space, and Place. In Leonardi, P. M., Nardi, B. A., & Kallinikos, J. (Eds.), Materiality and organizing: Social interaction in a technological world. Oxford University Press on demand. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199664054.001.0001.
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Mair, J., & Gegenhuber, T. (2021). Open Social Innovation. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 16 (4), 26–33.
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  • Mair, J., & Gegenhuber, T., Thäter, L. & Lührsen, R. (forthcoming). Pathways and Mechanisms for Catalyzing Social Impact through Orchestration: Insights from an Open Social Innovation Project. Journal of Business Venturing Insights.
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  • Pache, A. C., Fayard, A. L., & Galo, M. (2022). How can cross-sector collaborations foster social innovation? A review. Social Innovation and Social Enterprises, 35-62.
  • Porter, A. J., Tuertscher, P., & Huysman, M. (2020). Saving Our Oceans: Scaling the Impact of Robust Action Through Crowdsourcing. Journal of Management Studies, 57 (2), 246–286.
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  • Wenzel, M., Krämer, H., Koch, J., & Reckwitz, A. (2020). Future and Organization Studies: On the rediscovery of a problematic temporal category in organizations. Organization Studies, 41 (10), 1441–1455.
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Anne-Laure Fayard is Chaired Professor in Social Innovation at Nova School of Business and Economics, Portugal, and Visiting Research Professor at NYU, USA. As an ethnographer of work, her interests involve collaboration, technology, innovation and design. Anne-Laure’s work has been published in several leading academic journals such as ‘Administrative Science Quarterly’, ‘Organization Science’, and ‘Harvard Business Review’. Her research as well as social innovation projects has been frequently highlighted in major newspapers and magazines such as ‘New York Times’, ‘Financial Times’, ‘The Economist’, ‘The Guardian’, and ‘Le Monde’.
Thomas Gegenhuber is Professor for Socio-Technical Transitions at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria, and Visiting Researcher at Leuhana University Lüneburg, Germany. He researches novel forms of organizing such as platforms, and various forms of openness such open social innovation, open strategy, open innovation, and open government. Thomas’ work appears in international journals such as ‘Information & Organization’, ‘Human Relations’, ‘Business & Society’, and ‘Long Range Planning’.
Johanna Mair is Professor of Organization, Strategy and Leadership at Hertie School, Germany, and Fellow at the Stanford Center on Philantrophy and Civil Society, USA. Her research focuses on how novel organizational and institutional arrangements generate economic and social development. Johanna’s research is published in leading scholarly journals.