ABSTRACT
Social innovation is becoming a key topic in innovation policy and research. This chapter explains what social innovation is and how it relates to similar concepts such as social entrepreneurship, social business, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), or responsible innovation. The chapter also unpacks the particular challenges of studying social innovation and how they can be addressed by comparative research applying a “systems” perspective. It highlights why normativity is a constituting element of the social innovation concept and provides prompts for future research on social innovation as core element of societal transformations, social change and institutional renewal.
