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Understanding social change through catalytic innovation: Empirical findings in Mexican social entrepreneurship
Author(s) -
Auvinet Caroline,
Lloret Antonio
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
canadian journal of administrative sciences / revue canadienne des sciences de l'administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.347
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1936-4490
pISSN - 0825-0383
DOI - 10.1002/cjas.1353
Subject(s) - social entrepreneurship , entrepreneurship , scale (ratio) , social change , business , social innovation , marketing , economic system , economic growth , economics , public relations , political science , finance , physics , quantum mechanics
Christensen, Baumann, Ruggles, and Sadtler (2006) proposed that organizations addressing social problems may use catalytic innovation as a strategy to create social change. These innovations aim to create scalable, sustainable, and systems‐changing solutions. This empirical study examines: (a) whether catalytic innovation applies to Mexican social entrepreneurship; (b) whether those who adopt Christensen et al.’s (2006) strategy generate more social impact; and (c) whether they demonstrate economic success. We performed a survey of 219 Mexican social entrepreneurs and found that catalytic innovation does occur within social entrepreneurship, and that those social entrepreneurs who use catalytic innovations not only maximize their social impact but also maximize their profits, and that they do so with diminishing returns to scale. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.