Diffusion Process of Social Innovation and the Role of Social Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Creating social value through addressing social issues, social entrepreneurs and social enterprises are becoming increasingly important actors in the diffusion process of social innovation. According to the typology of business models based on J. Gregory Dees' Scaling Theory (Dees et al. 2002 & 2004), social innovation cases are divided into cases of which the scaling method is called “Scaling Out” and cases of which the scaling method is assumed to be “Scaling Deep”. However, sometimes cases which somewhat resemble “Scaling Out” in business models are included in the “Scaling Deep” category. These cases are labled “Pre-Scaling Out”. Also, the diffusion process can be divided into 3 main phases: creation of idea, establishment of sustainability, and diffusion. Tsuyuki (2009) showed that business models created by social entrepreneurs of “Pre-Scaling Out” cases seem to be pre-mature compared to those created by social entrepreneurs of “Scaling Out” cases, especially in management of business rather than the business model itself. In addition, social entrepreneurs of social innovation cases often play the role of an access point in the communication network consisting of stakeholders both inside and outside of the social business organization.