Despite recent technological advancements and new mission-oriented innovation policies, researchers and practitioners have been claiming that existing solutions to the current societal issues are still too fragmented. This calls for further research on how new forms of collaboration can be developed to better address the inherent complexity of such challenges and generate collective responses. We do it through a single case-study that qualitatively explores the emergence process of an ecosystem of actors built around a Technology Social Venture (TSV) with a transformational social mission.

Our study contributes to the literature of innovation ecosystems and social innovation by offering a new perspective that 1) goes beyond platforms; 2) combines actors from different sectors with a common social mission; 3) complements the traditional conceptualization of ecosystem adopted by social innovation scholars; 4) analyses the impact of technology on social change processes challenging dominant institutional logics.

Keywords: Innovation Ecosystem; Social Innovation; Technology Social Venture; Institutional Change.

Authors: Gianlorenzo Meggio; Agnieszka Radziwon.

Abstract presented during the XXXIII ISPIM Innovation Conference “Innovating in a Digital World”, 5-8 June 2022, Copenhagen (Denmark).