The Yunus Social Innovation Center has as one of its primary goals to produce academic knowledge that can be translated into actionable and practical knowledge products capable of supporting the development of organizations and initiatives whose mission is to create value for society.
The knowledge products generated by the Center may include tools, case studies, academic articles, theses, communications, or manuals.
RESEARCH STREAMS by lifecycle stage
- Creation: Building Impact Ventures
- Consolidation: Business Modelling and Competitiveness analysis for Social Innovation
- Growth: Scaling Social Innovation (Scaling Up, Scaling Across and Scaling Deep)
- Dissemination: Systemic change
CROSS LINES
- Management for impact/Hybrid Organizations
- Digital Social Innovation
CREATION
BUILDING IMPACT VENTURES
This knowledge area seeks to deepen understanding of the initial phase of the life cycle of an impact venture. The development of an impact initiative begins with identifying a social problem and developing an innovative solution to prevent, mitigate, and potentially solve it. During this period, the initiative evolves in an interactive cycle of experimentation, accompanied by constant feedback.
The phase continues until the solution is validated after one or more pilot projects have been tested and there are already concrete indications of its effectiveness and impact.
CONSOLIDATION
BUSINESS MODELLING AND COMPETITIVENESS ANALYSIS FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION
An impact venture should always meet extended sustainability criteria - ensuring financial balance and results. In addition, successful solutions are typically associated with sustainable and innovative strategies that create value for beneficiaries.
Research on the different business models of impact ventures is essential, given the diversity of existing models within hybrid organizations and their implications for competitiveness. In this sense, it is critical not only to know the range of existing business models but also to redefine the concept and analysis of competitiveness in impact ventures.
GROWTH
SCALING SOCIAL INNOVATION
An impact venture with a coded business model and validated impact has as its main challenge to design the organization with an efficient and sustainable structure capable of ensuring the replication and expansion of the products/services it provides, increasing the value created for society.
This process involves deepening the support ecosystem for the initiative - partnerships, resource mobilization processes at scale, and stakeholder engagement management.
This increases management complexity and requires careful strategic planning for growth. Research and knowledge production on how to scale impact innovations will allow for identifying bottlenecks in the process, codifying models, and identifying growth strategies.
DISSEMINATION
SYSTEMIC CHANGE
The dissemination phase of an impact venture consists of institutionalizing the solution by society and consequently generating systemic change.
Systemic change results from a process intentionally designed to analyze the deep roots of social problems and their networks of causes and effects, altering the components and structures of the system in which the societal problem arises to get the system to behave in a new, healthier way, producing different results that create value for everyone.
Research on the impact of social innovation on systemic change is essential to understand their respective contributions to the structural transformation of society’s main problems.
CROSS LINES:
HYBRID ORGANIZING
The primary sources of economic value (capital, talent, business, and societal goodwill) tend to converge towards creating value for society and, consequently, positive societal impact. Reflecting on the evolution of the economic model (at the micro-level - initiatives, innovations, or organizations - and at the macro-level of the economic system itself) allows us to understand this reality on two levels:
(1) identifying incentives for various economic agents to consider impact as a relevant decision variable, anticipating potential tensions resulting from this organizational hybridity;
(2) analyzing economic trends resulting from the underlying economic evolution.
DIGITAL SOCIAL INNOVATION
Recent technological changes significantly impact how we relate, how organizations operate, and how innovation processes are carried out. Artificial Intelligence (AI), for example, has revolutionized organizational behavior. Additionally, despite there being unforeseeable effects, there are opportunities resulting from this technological transformation, allowing for the scalability of solutions with the potential for societal transformation and systemic change.
This research line seeks to study the effects of digitalization in the context of social innovations (in an entrepreneurial or organizational context) and how it can promote and accelerate their potential for systemic change.
CORPORATE SOCIAL INNOVATION
Corporate Social Innovation (CSI) consists of developing activities in a corporate environment that can contribute to solving society's problems and simultaneously contribute to the company's mission and core business. This concern materializes in innovative solutions integrated into organizational culture and within a company. CSI focuses on seeking solutions to important and neglected problems reflected in the value chain of companies, intending to maximize value creation for society and stakeholders - either by more efficient resource use or by implementing initiatives with positive impacts aligned with the organizational core business. Additionally, implementing these actions should maintain the corporate sustainability condition inherent in fair, balanced, and proportional remuneration of its production factors.
This research line will seek to effectively develop processes, mechanisms, and knowledge production in CSI, contributing to a better understanding of this theme within the business environment.