Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development

 

IFKAD 2018: Special Issue on: "Social Innovation for Knowledge-based Local Development"

Guest Editors:
Dr. Valentina Ndou, University of Salento, Italy
Prof. Giovanni Schiuma, University of Basilicata, Italy

With the increasing knowledge intensity of the contemporary economy, the capacity to create knowledge has become a priority for many territories (nations and cities) (Yigitcanlar & Lonnqvist, 2013; Schiuma, 2011). It has been primarily argued that the growth and sustainability of local innovation ecosystems rely highly on the role of knowledge and innovation, as strategic elements for competitiveness.

The scientific debate has widely recognised the role of territories as spaces where knowledge interaction takes place among scientific, technological, academic, cultural and innovation activities, catalysing economic productivity and competitiveness (Boschma, 2005; Komninos 2002, Carrilo et al., 2014).

Therefore, the notion of knowledge-based local development has emerged to denote the capacity of a place to use its knowledge for catching and anticipating emerging needs in the society (Schiuma and Lerro, 2014) as essential for innovative activities. As Capello (2017, p. 986) argues, “creativity and recombination capability to translate basic or applied scientific knowledge into innovative applications require a relational space where functional and hierarchical economic and social interactions are embedded in a geographical space”. Policymakers and academics have denoted increasing importance to the delineation of the processes and strategies that are necessary to support the development of a knowledge economy by providing comprehensive knowledge development agendas, fostering entrepreneurship and enabling social dialogue (Carrillo et al., 2014).

The transformation of knowledge into innovation is an iterative and interactive process whereby collective learning processes happen due to high mobility of professionals and skilled internal labour between firms, as well as intense cooperation among local actors and in particular customer-supplier relationships in production, design, research and, finally, knowledge creation (Camagni and Capello, 2002).

In such knowledge-based development contexts, the connotations of knowledge with ICTs development and infrastructure are widely understood. ICTs, as the main driving force for the development of knowledge society, enable the democratisation of knowledge and reduction of information asymmetries. The pervasive development and diffusion of ICTs is providing new opportunities for interaction and collaboration among various actors (policy makers, decision makers, planners, stakeholders, citizens, experts and scientists), thus sustaining the creation of distributed, real-time systems that enable fast and effective responses (Stratigea, 2009).

This has created the conditions for developing a participatory planning process with the aim to engage people in policy dialogue, to ensure the inclusiveness of the decision-making process (Stratigea, 2009). New dimensions and dynamics of interaction and collaboration have emerged that focus on co-production and co-creation of value via direct inclusion and participation of local stakeholders and citizens in the decision making process, thus sharing control over development initiatives as well as decisions and resources that affect them (van Asselt and Rijkens-Klomp, 2002).

It has been argued that social participation for innovation leads to better-informed and more creative decision making, while enabling citizens and stakeholders to make available their opinions, views, visions, ideas, expertise and knowledge to feed into the innovation process (Stratigea et al., 2015).

These developments have led to the introduction of the term social innovation and co-creation. In literature, social innovation and co-creation is conceptualised as an open process of participation, exchange and collaboration between relevant stakeholders, including end users, with the aim to produce long-lasting outcomes that addresses societal needs by fundamentally changing the relationships, positions and rules between the involved stakeholders (Hartley, 2005; Bason, 2010; Osborne & Brown, 2011; Sörensen & Torfing, 2011; Chesbrough, 2003, 2006).

These new perspectives for this development and innovation of localities require new updated approaches, frameworks and tools for the management of the social innovation and co-creation process at the local level. Therefore, this special issue aims to attract contributions that provide an in-depth investigation of the dynamics of social innovation and co-creation for local development.

We invite academics to submit original articles that include conceptual, empirical, analytical or design-oriented approaches.

The Guest Editors will be inviting substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics (IFKAD) 2018 for review and potential publication, but are also inviting other experts to submit articles for this call.

Subject Coverage
Suitable topics include, but are not limited, to the following:

• Which managerial and strategic approaches should be considered when addressing social innovation for local development?
• What are the most relevant knowledge processes that support social innovation?
• How do technologies impact social innovation processes?
• What are the main factors affecting the activation social innovation at the local level?
• What are the benefits of a social innovation process?
• How could big data analytics impact on social innovation processes?
• What are the diverse roles that citizens and stakeholders can play in the social innovation process?
• How can we grasp and assess the outcomes of social innovation and co-creation processes for local development?
• What are the new emerging business models that sustain social innovation?
• Which policies and regulations need to be adopted for effective governance?

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our Submitting articles page.

If you have any queries concerning this special issue, please email the Guest Editors:
Valentina Ndou: valentina.ndou@unisalento.it
Giovanni Schiuma: giovanni.schiuma@unibas.it

Important Dates

Manuscripts due by: 30 June, 2019