Emerging needs of social innovators and social innovation ecosystems

Abstract Social innovations (SIs) contribute to solving or at least mitigating many of the most pressing grand challenges. Similar to profit-oriented innovations, which are mainly developed by existing organizations and profit-oriented entrepreneurs, SIs are mainly developed and implemented by existing organizations and individual actors - social innovators. While much of the existing literature examines the needs of profit-oriented entrepreneurs and suggests entrepreneurial ecosystems as an adequate approach for satisfying profit-oriented entrepreneurs’ needs, little is known about the emerging needs of social innovators. By conducting an in-depth qualitative analysis of an exemplary territorial context based on 28 semistructured interviews and secondary data collection, this exploratory study aims to shed light on the emerging needs of social innovators. Furthermore, through an analysis of the identified needs, the study explores similarities and differences between the social innovation ecosystem and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Thus, Isenberg’s entrepreneurial ecosystem model is leveraged for the development of a novel social innovation ecosystem model.