Social innovation in China

This week, the topic is creating policies and ecosystems for social innovation. Though all the articles are addressing the problems US governments have in social innovation and giving suggestions on the right role US governments should be placed, these discussions remind me of my own working experience in a think tank in China which indicates that China has even more severe problems when it comes to social innovation.

According to the article, “Why We Aren't Getting the Full Benefit of Social Innovation -- and What the Government Should do About it”, there are three key requirements for social innovation: invention, evidence and resources. US has always been doing well in the first requirement, invention but has weaknesses on evidence and resources. However, for China, I think all the these three elements are severely lack in social innovation.

Social innovation is actually a relatively new word for the majority in China and even those who have heard about it might question the effectiveness of such a organization combining some attributions from both for-profit companies and non-profit organizations. Though there are some pioneers in this field but they are experiencing tremendous obstacles not only from governments but also from the misunderstanding of people. Thus, limited experiences in this field lead to limited invention. Generally, social innovation is still in the start stage in China.

As for evidences, since there are few real social innovation or social entrepreneurship in China, the accomplishments or impact evidences of the organization are not enough to convince people or governments of the value of such organizations.

From my perspective, the root cause of the lack of invention and evidences is the lack of resources, especially resources from government. Since government has absolute authority in China and can lead a trend easier than US government, the policies, signals or any information released from government matter a lot for any kinds of organizations. For now, there is no specific policies or regulations for social innovation organizations and this makes the organizations hard to identify themselves from the very beginning. Also, because of the lack of protection from law as a NGO or social innovation organization, these organizations usually have to register as a for-profit company. Just as the think tank I have worked in, I was surprised when I found it was using a different name when registering. For social innovation, China has a much longer road ahead.

Reference:

Forum, Skoll World. “Why We Aren't Getting the Full Benefit of Social Innovation -- and What the Government Should do About it.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 1 Dec. 2012, www.forbes.com/sites/skollworldforum/2012/11/12/why-we-arent-getting-the-full-benefit-of-social-innovation-and-what-the-government-should-do-about-it/#6f83e7da316f. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.