Conference announcement and first call for papers:
3rd GSB Conference on the Business of Social and Environmental Innovation (BSEI2013):
"Co-innovation to address wicked problems"
UCT Graduate School of Business
Cape Town, South Africa, 25-26 November 2013
The overarching objective of this conference series is to create a better understanding of the role of business in solving societal challenges by generating social and environmental innovation, especially from an African perspective. We welcome papers that address this broad theme, but we invite in particular submissions on this year's theme of "co-innovation to address wicked problems".
While traditional approaches to innovation focus on developing new technologies and new commercial applications, designed for economic value creation, wicked problems require innovations on a completely different scale. Such problems are large, messy and complex, and involve divergent perceptions on how problems are caused and resolved. They may also hold a trade-off between economic and social value creation. Some of the greatest challenges of our time are wicked problems, including many issues that are situated at the global-local nexus, such as poverty, climate change, biodiversity loss, or food insecurity. Simply hoping for product or process innovations to tame these problems will not be enough. Instead, the resolution of wicked problems demands a new approach to innovation which runs along three dimensions in order to generate wider, systemic transformations.
Firstly, wicked problems require different types of complementary innovations, including technological, organisational and social innovation. Secondly, wicked problems exceed stand-alone efforts by individual actors and necessitate collaborative innovations between different societal actors, ranging from businesses and governments to NGOs and local communities. Thirdly, wicked problems demand coordinated innovations which cut across different levels, scales and sectors. We capture these dimensions in the phrase co-innovation for sustainability.
The question of how to organise and promote such co-innovation poses tremendous conceptual and practical challenges. Therefore, we invite submissions on theory and experiences from practice that can advance our understanding of the following two key focus areas:
- Mechanisms, strategies, processes and dynamics of co-innovation for sustainability
- Role of businesses, social entrepreneurs and social enterprises in co-innovation
- Role of cross-sector collaboration in co-innovation
- Intra- and inter-organisational processes and capabilities needed for co-innovation
- Impact and outcomes of co-innovation for sustainability
- Creating and assessing impact
- Scaling up and replication of co-innovation
- Dealing with trade-offs in co-innovation
We welcome contributions from a variety of theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives, emphasising cross-fertilisation between different disciplines, themes and contexts. Please submit an extended abstract (1500-2000 words) of your paper or practitioner case to Tamlyn Mawa at
tamlyn.mawa@gsb.uct.ac.za by 31 July 2013. Authors will be notified regarding acceptance of paper and cases by 15 August 2013. Registration opens on 1 July 2013 via the conference website
www.gsb.uct.ac.za/BSEI. The conference fee is ZAR 1000.
Tamlyn Mawa
Research and Faculty Co-ordinator
Graduate School of Business
University of Cape Town
Office Telephone: +27 21 406 1441
Website:www.gsb.uct.ac.za
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