Social Innovations as Drivers of Social Change — Exploring Tarde’s Contribution to Social Innovation Theory Building

In the context of seemingly intractable social challenges such as climate change, environmental destruction, youth unemployment and social exclusion, social innovation has emerged as a potentially sustainable solution. It is often assumed that social innovation can lead to social change (see, for example, Cooperrider and Pasmore, 1991; Mulgan et al., 2007; BEPA, 2010). However, the relationship between social innovation and social change remains underexplored: Rather than being used as a specifically defined specialist term with its own definable area of studies, social innovation is used more as a kind of descriptive metaphor in the context of phenomena of real world problems, social change, and the modernisation of society. (Howaldt and Schwarz, 2010, p. 49)