Dusting off “Social innovation system”

In reference to the Innovation System theory of inter-connected and process oriented innovation, the Social Innovation System concept in our study is an inter-connection of things in developing, diffusing and utilizing innovation targeting social issues or needs. The growing popularity and support for Social Innovation, has triggered us to analyse the scholarly contributions with the aid Innovation Systems theory. We assumed that the Innovation System theory might broaden our understanding of the emerging Social Innovation System concept. The corpus review of 15 peer-reviewed articles resulted in a Cartesian plane with four axes namely: institutional, organizational, and social — public good and quality of life. The study indicates that Innovation System theories do not account for Society or Social as a passive or an active participant in the Innovation process. Therefore we posit that current theories must go beyond Local, Regional, National, Sectoral, and Technological to include Social.