Sustainability and Social Innovation

Innovation means value creation with something new and gives economic, cultural and social values. However, previous research on technology and innovation management has limited focus in the process of economic value creation. Current increasing notice on social issues like climate change and financial crisis surged us to pay much attention on social value of innovation. Social innovation is sometimes referred as a process of social inclusion of excluded groups in the current social and economic system for social justice. In this application paper, the role of innovation to realize social innovation will be discussed. Theoretical arguments on ethical and normative concepts including justice, economic efficiency, equity, sustainability are comparatively investigated and discussed. In cases are of crowd-funded projects, awarded projects include those for developing countries, education, arts, etc. There seem to be much room for enhancing those projects. Integrated process of social innovation and economic innovation are stressed. And difficulties in social innovation processes are also discussed. These results offer new direction of research of technology and innovation management toward social innovation.