How do social entrepreneurs develop technological innovation?

Duygu Türker · Y. Serkan Ozmen

24 citations0/0 files storedSocial enterprise journal

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences Innovation, Technology, and Society Innovation and Socioeconomic Development

Abstract

Purpose The present study attempts to analyze how social entrepreneurs (SEs) develop technological innovation in the face of diverse institutional logics, which are embedded in the National Systems of Innovation (NSI). Design/methodology/approach Based on the content analysis of Ashoka Fellows, the study compares SEs in developed and developing countries, which represent strong versus weak NSIs. Findings SEs selectively couple the elements of diverse institutional logics to ensure the resource inflow and legitimacy of their operations. However, SEs particularly at weak NSIs are also decoupling their profit and non-for-profit branches to address conflict among diverse logics. Moreover, the study finds that 12 out of 20 entrepreneurs who identify themselves as technologically innovative did not develop any new technological innovation. Practical implications The study shows that being technologically innovative depends on the acquisition of resources and the management of legitimacy challenges, SEs can diversify their innovations by creating more incremental, architectural and modular innovations to address competing demands among logics. Social implications The study reveals that SEs in weak NSIs interact with multiple institutional logics more frequently than their counterparts in strong NSIs. Although this context leads them to diversify their technological innovation, there is a need for improving the NSIs of SEs in developing countries to facilitate the continuity of resource inflow and ensure the legitimacy of their operations. Originality/value Integrating two complementary theoretical lenses, the study contributes to the literature by exploring the impact of the interaction between logics nested within a supra system and SEs’ ability to develop technological innovation.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 24 citations exist upstream.

References

1990Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms 2005Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight 1991Bringing Society Back In : Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions 2011Institutional Complexity and Organizational Responses 2006Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Same, Different, or Both?1988Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory 1995The ‘National System of Innovation’ in historical perspective 2010Building Sustainable Hybrid Organizations: The Case of Commercial Microfinance Organizations

Cited by

2021An ecosystemic model for the technological development of social entrepreneurship: exploring clusters of social innovation 2022Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development Goals: A Conceptual Framework 2022Value co-creation as a mediator between strategic planning and social enterprise performance 2024Survival of Inclusive Sellers During Crisis: Effect of Technological Innovation 2025Social innovation and value creation in Africa: an overview

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.