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Social Innovation and Why it has Policy Significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

David Adams  and
Michael Hess
David Adams
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Michael Hess
Affiliation:
The University of New South Wales
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Abstract

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Academic discussion of social challenges and the government interventions which might address them are overlooking social innovation as an option. Contemporary trends at the community-public management interface, however, show an upsurge of interest in social innovation as a way of simultaneously creating social benefit and economic opportunity. While this indicates that the idea has genuine substance our observation of international and Australian developments convinces us that there is now sufficient experience upon which to base an understanding of what social innovation is and why it has policy significance. In this article we identify some components of social innovation practice and indicate how these might be theorised into generally applicable models.

Keywords

Cluster theorycommunitycommunity strengtheningregional developmentsocial networkssocial capitalsocial innovationsocial policy
Type
Symposium: Innovation, Skills and Training
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , December 2010 , pp. 139 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2010

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