Perspectives on the role of business in social innovation

Purpose We conducted an integrative review of the representative literature on social innovation. The analysis focused on the key arguments made about the involvement of business actors in processes of social innovation and interweaved in this study to build a logically coherent definition of what social innovation in business means for the bulk of those who write and speak about it today. The scope of the literature review was expanded by integrating insights from the extant ‘business in society’ and social innovation literatures, thereby adding clarity to our conceptualisation. Design/methodology/approach This article examines the conceptual construct of social innovation in business as distinct from social innovation implemented by civil society and the state. The general absence of sustained research and analysis of this phenomenon, and the dominance of grey and policy-oriented literature, mean that a broadly accepted definition of how social innovation theorises the changing role of business in socie...