Commercializing Work Life Balance Outlining a Model for Analyzing and Promoting Social Science Innovation

Abstract

Innovations have hitherto mostly been acknowledged in terms of new technical products in both theories and policies on innovation. The public support to the transformation of research results and new ideas into new goods and services, provided by the state as well as by several universities, has thus primarily been adapted to the conditions prevalent in technological and manufacturing industries. Since the Nordic countries have a long tradition in policy and research focusing social aspects of societal development, there ought to be a potential in supporting innovations emanating from the social sciences as well. Social science innovations could then better serve to solve the great economic and social challenges identified on the global level by OECD, on the European level by EU and on the national level by the EU member states, not least the Nordic countries. But as the public support system for innovations is adapted to technological standards and conditions, what possibilities are there to promote and enhance ideas coming out social science driven innovations? Based on an empirical example of a specific social science innovation, this article explores how existing support systems could be adapted to enhance innovation in other disciplines and spheres outside or beyond technological ones. The empirical example emanates from a university in the middle parts of Sweden, where the Grants and Innovation Office engaged themselves in a process of intense adaptation of their services to meet the need of a social science researcher who presented on the idea of an innovation based on research on the area of gender equality. The article describes this particular innovation process step by step from research result to commercialized service using a participatory research design, autobiographical method and experimental method. Based on this empirical example of realizing a specific social science innovation, this article outlines a model for analyzing and promoting and recognizing these type of innovations. The model enables an analysis of the innovation process by its power dimensions, affecting the prospects of realizing the original idea and pinpointing key aspects for promoting social science innovations.

Citation

Nahnfeldt, C. and Lindberg, M. (2013), "Commercializing Work Life Balance Outlining a Model for Analyzing and Promoting Social Science Innovation", International Journal of Innovation Science, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 21-30. https://doi.org/10.1260/1757-2223.5.1.21