Embedding social innovation process into the institutional context: Voids or supports

- Social innovation is analyzed from the perspectives of institutional voids and supports.
- A model of social innovation is proposed from the structuration and institutional theories.
- A content analysis is conducted on a sample of 34 Ashoka fellows.
- The role of voids and supports embedded in institutional logics is revealed.
- Voids stimulate social innovation mostly at the incremental and institutional level.

Social innovation (SI) is a complex construct that is lacking a unifying paradigm in social sciences. However, together with the recent attention towards social change, it requires a theoretical perspective that analyzes the construct within its institutional context (IC) without forgetting that the term is socially constructed. This current study aims to contribute to the literature by exploring and describing the inter-linkages between institutional voids (IVs)/institutional supports (ISs) perspectives and SI process by positioning the actor as the catalyzer and the change-agent. The study tries to explore if existing IVs or supports, which are embedded in social-welfare, commercial or public-sector logics, stimulate SI and result in the development of these ideas. The research setting is deliberately selected as a developing country that deals with plenty of IVs and suffers from the lack of ISs; a research setting that exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity and a low institutionalization level. The results indicate that IVs stimulate SIs mostly at the incremental and institutional level where IS is inadequate. The heterogeneity of IVs and a low degree of institutionalization result in the heterogeneity of actions undertaken for SI. Implications for practitioners and scholars are recommended at the end of the paper.