[AISWorld] CFP - INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT (ISM) - Special Issue on Social Innovation in the Public Sector

[Vishanth Weerakkody]

************ Call for Papers ************

INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT (ISM)

Special Issue on Social Innovation in the Public Sector

Since of late, the concept of social innovation has become increasingly evident in policy, scientific and public debates. Growing consensus among practitioners, policy makers and the research community suggest that social innovation is a viable approach to cope with the significant challenges that societies are facing presently and in the foreseeable future. Social innovation has many different (and sometimes conflicting) meanings in a variety of areas such as innovation within the technological, management and organisational research, as part of social economy, in sustainable development, or as an aspect of territorial development (Moulaert et al., 2005; Howaldt and Schwarz 2010; Rüede and Lurtz 2012; Franz et al., 2012). In this respect, social innovation encompasses new concepts, practices, policy instruments, new forms of cooperation and organisation, processes and regulations that are developed and/or adopted by citizens, and politicians etc., in order to meet social demands and to resolve societal challenges in a better way than existing practices. Usually, a social innovation is underpinned by an idea that is intended to change social practices which would contribute to overcoming social problems or to satisfy needs of specific societal actors. In this context, there have been calls for research on the capacities and potential of social innovations to modify or even re-direct social change and to empower people in order to improve social cohesion and allow for sustainable and inclusive growth. This poses a core challenge to research, namely to balance between excessive expectations of ground-breaking systemic social innovations (or radical innovations in the common language of innovation theory and research), and the overwhelming, often nameless yet important, responsive social innovations to specific and every-day social demands (or incremental innovations) (Norman and Verganti 2012).

This special issue of Information Systems Management aims to synthesis research that applies the social innovation concept in theoretical and empirical contexts focusing specifically on how civil society (citizens, NGOs, private businesses, social entrepreneurs etc.) can drive social innovation to:
. facilitate services and processes that are traditionally delivered by the public sector in different regions of the world
. empower citizens, companies, institutions within a region to be prepared for forthcoming social and societal changes
. foster public-private partnerships to overcome structural changes and economic and financial crises
. substitute traditional public services where appropriate (with more efficient and/or effective ones).

In this vein, the special issue seeks scholarly manuscripts that explore the role, possibilities and constraints that information systems and their management could have within social innovation processes of the public sector:
a) in relevant policy areas: healthcare for ageing population, new trends in vocational education and training (lifelong learning), inclusion and empowerment of human capital through education, sustainable development, mobility and transport, work life balance, security, justice and infrastructure, and

b) as a tool
. for providing platforms and developing networks for different actors to collaborate, participate, synergise resources
. for the empowerment of citizens, co-creation and diffusion, and dealing with the demands and societal challenges, resources, capabilities and constraints
. for improving traditional services through social innovation (processes)
. for developing pro-active strategies for forthcoming societal changes (economy, society, etc.)
. for answering new demands, limited resources and modified functions of the public service
. for the development of indicators and measures to monitor social innovation processes in the public sector.

Other broad areas that would be considered appropriate for the Special Issue include Information Systems Management in the Public Sector in the context of:
. objectives and social demands, societal challenges and systemic changes that are addressed through ISM within a social innovation process
. drivers, barriers and governance (including the role of social entrepreneurship, networks, user involvement) of social change and development
. ISM within a social innovation cycle (prompts, proposal, prototypes, sustaining, scaling up, systemic change)
. case studies and examples that exemplify the role and influence of ICT on social innovation
. analysis of theories, models and concepts that help advance understanding of social innovation
. studies that evaluate testable hypotheses regarding conditions under which social innovations may have a sustainable impact on public sector services and/or processes
. studies that explore how and under what conditions social innovation leads to change in existing public sector structures, policies, institutions and behaviour
. social innovation's influence on citizen participation in political processes, empowerment and social cohesion
. diffusion processes of social innovation within and between countries and analysis of associated new digital services and urban development
. methods and tools for developing social innovation experimentation and incubation in the context of public sector services and processes.

The editors of this special issue of ISM particularly seek to capture the above themes in the context of how they may help drive social innovation to facilitate new and innovative models of service delivery for areas that are traditionally perceived as the responsibility of the state (or the public sector).

Schedule
Call for Papers Issued: May 08, 2013
Submission of full paper: September 11, 2013;  
Feedback from referees: November 11, 2013;
Submission due date of revised papers: January 08, 2014; 
Final feedback from co-editors: January 30, 2014; 
Final revised papers due: February 26 2014; 
Notification of acceptance: March 03, 2014; 
Publication date: 2014; Vol. 31, Issue 2

Submission Guidelines
Manuscripts should not normally exceed 7500 words and must be submitted electronically as a MS Word document to Vishanth Weerakkody (email: vishanth.weerakkody at brunel.ac.uk). The email subject should read 'ISM Special Issue Submission'. The first page of the document (cover page) should have the names, institutional affiliations, postal and email addresses of all authors of the work submitted and a clear identification of the primary author who will be the sole point of contact between the guest editors and the authors. Except on the cover page, the authors' names and affiliations or any other identifying information must NOT appear elsewhere in the manuscript. Upon receipt, an initial assessment of the manuscript will be carried out by at least two of the guest editors to ascertain fit of the manuscript with the special issue scope and mission. You will normally receive an acknowledgement within ten working days. Detailed instructions for the preparation of manuscripts are provided on the publisher's website (Taylor & Francis). Authors should follow the 'authors and submission' link in the journal website when submitting their paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/uism20/current#.UYqJxWeW4po


Guest Editors
Vishanth Weerakkody
Business School, Brunel University, UK
Email: Vishanth.Weerakkody at brunel.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0) 1895 266020

Antonius Schröder
Social Research Centre, Technical University of Dortmund
Email: schroeder at sfs-dortmund.de
Phone: +49 (0)231-8596-283

Ahmad Ghoneim
Business School, Brunel University, UK
Email: Ahmad.Ghoneim at brunel.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0) 1895 265176