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The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation

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The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation

Abstract

Innovative responses are necessary to address persistent and intertwined problems such as poverty, resource degradation, or food insecurity. There is a growing expectation for business to play a proactive role in this, but there are still remarkable gaps in our understanding of how exactly business can generate social and environmental innovation. This book focuses on the business of social and environmental innovation in the African context, where these issues are particularly relevant but even less well understood. The following chapter sets the scene by introducing the key concepts and issues at stake. We argue that the emergence of social and environmental innovation is often associated with individual efforts of social entrepreneurs, organizational transformation in incumbent businesses, and/or cross-sector partnerships as collective efforts. This is reflected in the sequence of the chapters in this volume. We identify four cross-cutting themes which are addressed in some way or other by each of the contributing chapters: (1) social innovation as a process or outcome; (2) mapping and scaling up innovations; (3) tension between social purpose and profit generation; and (4) socio-economic and institutional context.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Fine, D., van Wamelen, A., Lund, S., Cabral, A., Taoufiki, M., Dörr, N., Leke, A., Roxburgh, C., Schubert, J. and Cook, P., 2012. Africa at work: Job creation and inclusive growth. McKinsey Global Institute.

  2. 2.

    Quotations taken from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/the-rise-of-social-entrepreneur/

  3. 3.

    Depending on the type of innovation, the word ‘social’ can also be replaced or supplemented by the word ‘environmental’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, Portswood Road, Green Point, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

    Verena Bitzer

  2. Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Ralph Hamann

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  1. Verena Bitzer
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  2. Ralph Hamann
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Correspondence to Verena Bitzer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Business University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Verena Bitzer

  2. Graduate School of Business University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Ralph Hamann

  3. Graduate School of Business University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Martin Hall

  4. Graduate School of Business University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Eliada Wosu Griffin-EL

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Bitzer, V., Hamann, R. (2015). The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation. In: Bitzer, V., Hamann, R., Hall, M., Griffin-EL, E. (eds) The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04051-6_1

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