Informatologia, Vol. 48 No. 3-4, 2015.
Original scientific paper
DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL INNOVATIONS AND THEIR MARKETING: A SLOVENIAN CASE STUDY
Iva Konda
; School of Business and Management Novo mesto, Slovenia
Jasmina Starc
; School of Business and Management Novo mesto, Slovenia
Barbara Rodica
; School of Business and Management Novo mesto, Slovenia
Abstract
Social innovations complement economic innovations and are focused primarily on achieving social welfare. The essence of social innovation is the simultaneous action to create public good by detecting and identifying social problems, as well as using entrepreneurial principles to achieve positive social changes. These include new ideas, organisations or ways of functioning that more effectively meet social needs than previous alternatives and improve social wellbeing. The European Union supports and encourages social innovation; in fact, innovation is 'the heart' of the Europe 2020 strategy. The paper aims at reviewing and studying the development of social innovations as an important phenomenon in today's real economy, with an emphasis on building a supportive environment for social innovations and marketing social innovations in Slovenia. In the EU the level of development of social innovation differs from country to country, whereby Slovenia is still in its beginnings. The authors believe that social innovation development is of vital importance for overcoming the economic crisis in the Slovenian setting. The purpose of this paper is to show the current state in this field in Slovenia in terms of the extent to which this phenomenon is researched and the level of development in practice. In terms of methodology, the authors of the article reference the findings from the research of literature, analysis of relevant documents and in-depth interviews, as well as a secondary analysis of statistic data. In Slovenia, social innovations are important in numerous fields, especially in employment, social inclusion, demographic changes, healthcare, education, finance, political structures and social integration. When introducing social innovation into society, the greatest difficulties are a lack of financial resources, a weak support environment, a lack of marketing knowledge and lack of inter-sectoral connection.
Keywords
social innovations; development; well-being; social marketing; communication; Slovenia
Hrčak ID:
151672
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2015.
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