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Governance and social innovation in non-profit organizations

Abstract:

Social innovation is a new service provided to society to meet social needs, its benefits are related to social welfare and development and are generated in a transformation process that seeks changes in times of unmet social needs or crisis. The objective of this study was to examine the incidence of governance variables: beneficiary participation and linkage with external actors in the social innovation of nonprofit organizations (NGOs), in order to contribute to the gap in the literature on these relationships, especially in developing countries. The study was conducted in the province of Guayas-Ecuador. It is a quantitative, cross-sectional, non-experimental research, using Probit regression. The results indicate that the linkage of external actors is positively related to social innovation in these organizations, while the variable participation of beneficiaries is not related to social innovation. It should be noted that the research has theoretical implications, since organizations with limited resources and capabilities are able, through adequate governance in the linkage with external actors, to complement the resources and knowledge they need to develop social innovation and, at the same time, practical ones, since managers of these organizations can increase the potential for social innovation by improving governance in the linkage with external actors.