Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Where Does Innovation Come From? Exploring the Dynamic Processes of Organizing and Managing Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

The past several decades have witnessed a significant rise in social entrepreneurship (SE) activities aimed at solving complex social problems like poverty and educational inequality. This Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG) will use large-scale datasets to systematically summarize the current state of SE in the United States and identify mechanisms underlying innovative social ventures. Best practices identified in the research will offer tangible solutions to help practitioners make marked improvement in creating scalable and sustainable social innovations. The research will also identify the role public policy may play in encouraging social ventures to adopt appropriate business models, employ information and communication technologies (ICTs), and engage in collaboration networks. The research will involve surveying 3,000 social ventures across the United States to examine how market logics and community logics enable or constrain the type, degree, and quality of social innovations created by social ventures. Market logics suggest that social ventures may act like for-profit businesses and compete in capital markets to earn profits. At the same time, social ventures may also follow community logics by adopting the key principles of nonprofit organizing. The data will also be used to understand how market logics and community logics influence social ventures' use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and inter-organizational networks to create social innovations.