In this post I briefly outlines my
plans for a research study of the business models that support and enable
digital social innovation, as part of my broader ESRC funded fellowship
project. As ever I am seeking to work in open and transparent
manner, and I will continue to post updates on my blog as my research develops. I
very much welcome feedback on this research outline, so please do get in touch
with thoughts, comments and suggestions. Also if you are working on a digital
social innovation and would be interested in participating in the research it
would be great to hear from you.
Digital Social Innovation
Rapid advances in digital
technologies are opening up new possibilities to catalyse social change, or in
other words there are rapidly growing opportunities for digital social
innovation. At its heart a digital social innovation is the novel application
of digital technologies to better address a social need and to empower members
of society[1]
(The Young
Foundation, 2012). Digital social innovations can
emerge from any sector of the economy or from civil society, and seek to
address major social needs such mitigating climate change, reducing social
exclusion, improving education and access to knowledge etc.
Examples include Wikileaks, Raspberry Pi and Kickstarter, but in a short
research outline it impossible to do justice to breadth of innovative activity
currently taking place. Rather the
Nominet Trust’s list of 100 of “The
World’s Most Inspiring Social Innovations Using Digital Technology”
remains an excellent resource for exploring the current and potential impact of
the digital social innovation.
Research scope
In this research study I will
explore the business models that underpin and enable the development of digital
social innovations; defining a business model as describing how and why an
organisation creates, delivers and captures social (and in some cases economic)
value. The study will focus on the business models of private sector, social
enterprise and non-profit organisations, and explore four interrelated themes
as follows.
- Motivations for and mechanisms of social value creation - seeking to understand how organisations: formulate their social and customer value propositions, make the trade-offs (e.g. between social value creation and the financial position of the organisation), respond to competitive and collaborative dynamics, and evaluate and manage their social impact (including any potential downsides of their activities).
- The system of activities orchestrated by organisations (Zott and Amit, 2010) - seeking to understand: which activities organisations include within their business models (e.g. developing web platforms, developing communities of users ...); how collaborators, customers and co-producers are involved in these activities; and which activities are central to business models for digital social innovation.
- The resources models of organisations – seeking to understand how organisations develop and draw up on financial, social (e.g. networks of contacts), cultural (e.g. skills and knowledge) and symbolic resources (e.g. the social purpose of the organisation) to develop digital social innovations.
- Patterns in business model design – seeking to understand the dominant drives of value creation in digital social innovation, and how business models designs vary with organisational scale and across sectors.
Research outputs
The research programme outlined
in this document will deliver three key outputs: (1) two academic journal
papers reporting the findings of the research; (2) a report for policy-makers
and funders with interests in promoting digital social innovation, presenting
evidence on the types of business models that enable digital social innovations
to emerge, become sustainable and scale up; (3) a toolkit to support
organisations and entrepreneurs engaged digital social innovation to review,
design or re-design their business models.
Research approach
The research approach consists of
two phases: first, a pilot project, the findings of which will inform the
design and execution of a second larger scale phase research activity. The
table below provides a high-level view of the timescales for the research. The
pilot project will focus on better understanding the business models of
organisations engaged in digital social innovation, which in turn will inform
the design of the 2nd phase of research. During the pilot project I
will conduct semi-structured interviews with members of organisations engaged
in the practice of digitally-mediated social innovation.
Phase 1: pilot study
|
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Research design for the pilot research project
|
March 2014
|
Data collection (approx. 5-10 interviews with
members of organisations)
|
April – May
|
Data analysis
|
June
|
Reporting findings of pilot phase
|
July
|
Phase 2: larger-scale study
|
August 2014 – May 2015
|
References
