| Abstract [eng] |
New social challenges that have emerged in recent decades, such as migration, financial instability, an aging society, crisis of resources and political alienation are forcing authorities, organizations and communities to seek new ways of thinking, cooperating and addressing these issues. Because existing government and economic market mechanisms are unable to meet all of these complex challenges, there is an increasing focus on social innovation (SI), which offers new ideas and ways to address social challenges. Although considerable academic and political attention is paid to the topic of social innovation through separate European fund programs and other similar funding initiatives, the development of social innovation, especially in Lithuania, is still sluggish and noticeably unsustainable due to various barriers to SI development. Although barriers to SI development have been explored in recent years, there is still a lack of both methodological tools and empirical knowledge on how to overcome these barriers at the macro level. Therefore, the aim of this work is to identify barriers to the development of social innovations and present ways to overcome them. To reach the aim the following tasks have been set out: 1. To analyze the situation of social innovations and existing barriers in Lithuania and Europe. 2. To perform the analysis of the phenomenon of social innovation, distinguishing the main dimensions of social innovation, actors and the development process. 3. To identify barriers to the development of social innovations and ways to overcome them. 4. To substantiate the research methodology of social innovation development barriers and their overcoming methods. 5. Based on empirical research, to provide recommendations for overcoming barriers to the development of social innovations in Lithuania. The object of the research is ways to overcoming barriers to social innovation development at a national level. Methods: analysis of scientific literature, expert interview, thematic analysis of qualitative content. Main results: Based on the theoretical analysis, social innovation is defined as a complex non-linear process that develops new products, services, platforms, organizational forms or relationships that meet the unmet social needs of the market and generate long-term value for social partners, actors and society. According to the empirical study, there is a wide range of social innovation barriers in Lithuania. The prompts, inspiration, and diagnosis phase is one of the most important throughout the SI process. Empirical research has identified the most SI barriers at this stage, such as lack of natural perception, lack of data, measurement and positive experience, business model, skills and learning, talent gap, funding and poverty trap. First-stage barriers are one of the most important, as they can completely reduce the opportunities for social actors to innovate. Barriers to the development of social innovation are complex, and barriers at one stage can affect the implementation at other stages. Based on the analysis of scientific literature and empirical research, the ways of overcoming barriers to the development of social innovation are divided into four dimensions: cultural dynamics and social capital, institutional structure, support services and knowledge management. The main recommendations include cooperation between SI actors through mechanisms promoting the transfer of public services, integrated SI representation, and the development of clustering. It is also recommended to regulate the social business model, change the SI evaluation criteria, allocate targeted support and investments. Education should become part of the solution of complex SI barriers by developing social innovation study programs at universities, educating and teaching about the importance of the social dimension, social innovation and creativity starting at young age, integrating it into school curriculum. Also, using the established cooperation networks between SI actors for targeted public education. Starting the preparatory work in advance and simultaniuosly, could be considered as the main and fundamental distinct solution of SI barriers, which would comprehensively combine all other methods. The work consists of an introduction, situation analysis, analysis of scientific literature, research methodology, analysis of empirical results, conclusions and recommendations, list of used literature and annexes. Thesis consists of 96 pages without annexes, including 16 tables and 9 figures. The bibliography consists of 88 sources. 2 annexes are provided. |
