Guide for future studies on social innovation

Social innovation is an essential process for society’s evolution and the search for sustainable alternatives to achieve wellbeing.

In the international context there has been a growing interest in social innovation due to the need to find alternative ways to resolve problems arising from regional differences and to put forward solutions that meet society’s expectations.

This study, carried out by a group of Brazilian researchers, sees social innovation as a way to deal with different social issues and provides future researchers with a map of their trends in order to facilitate studying them.

In practical terms, the analysis used to draw up this map was based on four steps: (1) searching databases for studies related to social innovation, analyzing the media, countries and institutions that regularly publish material on the subject; (2) identifying the methodologies used in this field by different researchers; (3) identifying the objectives and main results of a sample of existing questionnaires; and (4) putting forward topics related to social innovation that are worthy of future research.

With regard to the theoretical contribution, this study proposes that social innovation should be used as an additional management tool. This concept of social innovation is used internationally by numerous research groups looking for solutions to the needs of different communities in a democratic society.