A Business Perspective on Social Innovativeness: The Influence on Corporate Reputation and the Relationship with Product Innovativeness

Year 2021, Volume: 23 Issue: 2, 341 - 363, 30.11.2021

Ayşe Mine Yurdagel Azize Yalçın

Abstract

Social innovation is built within a collaboration of different origin stakeholders like public sector, social sector, people, and private sector. In spite of the substantive studies in the literature for the point of view of the first three players, there seems to be a gap to represent the standing point of the companies within social innovation arena, their contributions and their expectations.
For profit companies deserve an important role in social innovation scheme with their capacity to offer sustainability and scalability to any project. On the other side, companies can enjoy benefits from a social innovation project as well. The study investigates one of these benefits, corporate reputation enhancement. The study also compares the impact of social innovativeness on corporate reputation to the impact of product innovativeness on corporate reputation, and analyzes the correlation between social innovativeness and product innovativeness within a company.
Taking the consumers as the stakeholder in question, the results show that the social innovativeness of a company will positively influence the corporate reputation, and this effect may even surpass the impact of the product innovativeness. Additionally, consumers correlate social innovativeness with product innovativeness, and it is foreseen that the companies having the ability to develop socially innovative projects are also innovative in developing new products or services.

Keywords

Social Innovation, Corporate Reputation, Social Innovativeness Scale

İş Dünyası Açısından Sosyal Yenilikçilik; Kurumsal İtibar Üzerindeki Etkisi ve Ürün Yenilikçiliği ile İlişkisi

Abstract

Sosyal yenilik, kamu sektörü, sosyal sektör, halk ve özel sektör gibi farklı kökenden paydaşların işbirliği içinde gerçekleştirilir. Literatürde, ilk üçünün bakış açısına yönelik önemli çalışmalar bulunmasına rağmen, firmaların sosyal yenilik alanındaki yeri, katkıları ve beklentileri konusunda boşluklar bulunmaktadır.
Kâr amaçlı şirketler, herhangi bir projeye sürdürülebilirlik ve ölçeklenebilirlik sunma kapasiteleri ile sosyal yenilik alanında önemli bir rolü hak etmektedir. Öte yandan, şirketler bir sosyal yenilik projesinden fayda da sağlayabilirler. Çalışmada, bu faydalardan biri olan kurumsal itibarın artırılması araştırılmış; sosyal yenilikçiliğin kurumsal itibar üzerindeki etkisi, ürün yenilikçiliğinin kurumsal itibar üzerindeki etkisiyle karşılaştırılmış ve sosyal yenilikçilik ile ürün yenilikçiliği arasındaki ilişki analiz edilmiştir.
Sonuçlara göre, tüketiciler açısından bakıldığında sosyal yenilikçilik firma kurumsal itibarını olumlu yönde etkilemekte, hatta bu etki ürün yenilikçiliğinden daha yüksek oranda gerçekleşebilmektedir. Ayrıca tüketiciler sosyal yenilikçiliği ürün yenilikçiliği ile ilişkilendirmekte, sosyal olarak yenilikçi projeler geliştirme yeteneğine sahip firmaların yeni ürün veya hizmetler geliştirmede de yenilikçi olduğunu öngörmektedir.

Keywords

Sosyal Yenilik, Kurum İtibarı, Sosyal Yenilikçilik Ölçeği, Ürün Yenilikçiliği

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