Title: Social innovation as practice: exploring the entanglement of political and managerial logics

Authors: Alexandra Gaidos; Florence Palpacuer; Nicolas Balas

Addresses: University of Montpellier, Montpellier Management Institute, Espace Richter 34960 Montpellier Cedex 2, 208 Rue Vendémiaire, France ' University of Montpellier, Montpellier Management Institute, Espace Richter 34960 Montpellier Cedex 2, 208 Rue Vendémiaire, France ' University of Montpellier, Montpellier Management Institute, Espace Richter 34960 Montpellier Cedex 2, 208 Rue Vendémiaire, France

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present the conceptual considerations at the basis of a PhD research aiming at making sense of the concept of social innovation in the way it is put into practice through incubators and social enterprises. It builds notably on the feedback obtained at the 4th meeting on Critical Management Studies in Louvain-la-Neuve where a first version of this paper has been presented. Social innovation (SI) as a concept has received increasing attention from scholars during the last two decades. Nevertheless, it is now confronted with the apparition of a diversity of definitions that show the difficulty of grasping: 1) the 'social' in SI; 2) the more practical forms that SI can take. In front of this ambiguity, the current research made the choice of the Grounded Theory as the appropriate approach in understanding the reality of SI as it is implemented through a case study of dedicated incubators and socially innovative enterprises.

Keywords: social innovation; social enterprise; critical management studies; incubators; innovation; social incubators; incubation; social entrepreneurship.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWI.2017.091417

International Journal of Work Innovation, 2017 Vol.2 No.2/3, pp.231 - 245

Accepted: 02 Jun 2017
Published online: 30 Apr 2018 *

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