STREAM 13
Social Innovation, Strategy and Social Entrepreneurship 

In 2007, Charles Leadbeater (1) wrote what was essentially a think piece for government intended to stimulate debate on the topic of social innovation. The author argued that social enterprises were key to delivering on the promise of social innovation by building innovative solutions to problems. It was argued that government needed a process and a framework on which social innovations would be based and social impact realized. It situated social enterprise as a tool to address the shortcomings of public service provision, and gaps remaining in the marketplace, often due to market failures. Leadbeater suggested that social enterprise represented an approach considered a more open and approachable manner to deliver public services that were otherwise thought to be paternalistic, and encouraging a dependency culture.

We can ask ourselves, where are we today? As we moved through more than a decade of social innovation strategies, government-based interventions, and programs all targeted towards supporting and guiding social innovation, have we been able to create a space that is more engaged, open, and less paternalistic? Social enterprises are still here, and delivering programs, and various forms of what can be considered public services. They are said to empower beneficiaries which would certainly be more aligned with a model that is less dependency-based. However, does ‘practice’ support such empowerment? The example of Fair Trade, where social enterprises engage in system level social innovations, brings both support for a more engaged approach toward the development of socially innovative solutions to social problems, but also doubt that true change has occurred as we now see multiple market based social marketing approaches from large multinational firms that really have not changed the market system at all.
It appears that the debates on the strategies to adopt for supporting social innovation through social enterprises remains one in which we need to engage once again. For instance, spaces such as government supported social innovation labs have shown that policy makers require a deeper understanding of how communities solve problems locally, how they engage communities, and how can solutions can be co-created to ensure social impact is achieved. There remains a disconnect between how governments work, and how communities act. Considering that much work has occurred through social enterprises and social innovation activities for 2 decades, can their work inform the development of policies that will engage with, and favour actions that fit within communities and their modes of action? 
We invite conference submissions from academic researchers, practitioners and emerging scholars that address the conference through;

• Academic papers, panels and roundtables 

• Case studies, practitioner findings, and field reports

• Pedagogical and teaching papers 

A list of topics can be found below:

1. The study of social innovation and social enterprise action in communities that help us understand community engaged social innovation  

2. The study of the role of government in social innovation  

3. The study of processes that involve multiple stakeholders in policy development for social innovation  

4. Papers on multidisciplinary approaches as seen in SE and SI. 

5. Examinations of how strategy informs social entrepreneurship

 

We also accept proposals of wider relevance, which may not fit the categories listed. For more information, please contact: Catherine Pearl [cpearl@mtroyal.ca] or Chantal Hervieux [Chantal.hervieux@smu.ca]

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(1) http://staging.community-wealth.org/sites/clone.community-wealth.org/files/downloads/paper-leadbeater.pdf