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The interviewees understood the reasons for the vagueness around the definition of social innovation to be complicated. 18% (5 of the 27) viewed the vagueness around the

definition as enabling—allowing social innovation to span across sectors, disciplines, and audiences. Chris Grumm, former president and CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, noted that a major upside to the field of social innovation is the opportunity that the language, in and of itself, presents. In agreement, Hamoon Ekhtiari, through his role as

founding director of Studio Y at MaRS Discovery District, felt that there is no need for an agreed-upon definition of social innovation, noting that it is important for the field to be relatable for people in order for them to feel comfortable engaging with the sector. Other respondents, about 11% (3 of the 27) felt that social innovation risks becoming elusive, slippery, and something easily emptied of meaning without an agreed-on definition. Surman articulated the difficulty around the language well, asserting,

There’s this wonderfully dangerous tension here because on the one hand we want it to be taken up by all of these different sectors, and on the other hand, we want to make sure it’s still there, right, that it’s still substantive.

Furthermore, Mark Goldenberg, adjunct professor at University of Ottawa and author of “Social Innovation in Canada: An Update,” elaborated on this tension—we need to allow social innovation to be loose enough so that it can continue to grow and evolve, but we also need to have some structure and agreed-upon definitions. From the perspective of government, Goldenberg described the tension between “over-structuring and over- defining the field and the need to legitimize it to acquire resources and support for it; social innovation isn’t the result of spontaneous combustion.” Ryan Lock, through his role as director of social enterprise for the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, discussed the difficulties that he has faced with a lack of a clear definition of social innovation, particularly within the context of the provincial government:

Some of this stuff is just not tidy, which is why we have academics like you trying to shine a little bit more light on it. I’ve been around many tables where the conversation gets bogged down around definitions and people struggle to advance it to the next step. . . . People who’ve been around this for a little bit longer and are tired of having the

definitional discussion ad nauseum are more apt to take the next step. They’ll pay lip service to the definitions but they

want to move on. People who are new to it get hung up on the definitions. Government can also get a little hung up on the definitions.

As Lock notes, it is difficult for governments to function without definitions.

Governments tend to operate in siloes, and in this way, social innovation may be contrary to how governments operate.82 From a researcher perspective, I found that the vagueness around the field encouraged me to take a big-tent approach to the research. I was able to engage with an array of interesting people from a range of sectors and disciplines, which resulted in a number of interesting conversations. At the same time, the vagueness around the definition was challenging throughout the interview process, and Joy Anderson, founder and president of Criterion Institute, encouraged me to be more concrete in my use of the term. The vagueness has also made it difficult to interpret the data and to determine how best to present the results in terms of ease of understanding and readability. I can empathize with the comments from Goldenberg and Lock, particularly in relation to the way in which traditional sectors, such as the government, relate to social innovation. At this time, however, I am most in agreement with Mulgan (2015), who argued that there is a need to be patient in terms of allowing social

innovation to become better understood:

As the field of social innovation grows, and becomes more subtle and complex, there is a need to be patient. It is at least fifty years since the innovation studies field took shape, led by such great figures as Richard Nelson, Christopher Freeman, Carlota Perez and Giovanni Dosi. Yet it is, in some respects, heartening to know that after half a century there are few agreed definitions of

82 _{Cels, De Jong, and Nauta (2012) provided a good analysis of the challenges that those working to} advance social good encounter within bureaucratic structures. The authors argued that many of the world’s organizations—public, private, or nonprofit—continue to function in line with Max Weber’s definition of bureaucracy. The authors detailed Weber’s principles of bureaucracy in relation to innovation. For this discussion, please see pp. 9–11.

innovation; few agreed metrics (and some certainty that the dominant ones, like patents and R&D spend, are

misleading); and little confidence about what works when it comes to policy. Indeed, one of the conclusions of a major review of global innovation policy evidence was that relatively little is known, and that how policy is

implemented matters as much as the policy itself (Rigby and Ramlogan, 2012). (p. xv)

In the interim, it appears that the range and variety that constitute social innovation defy simple categorization. Jenson (2015) noted that social innovation can be understood as a “quasi-concept”:83

A quasi-concept benefits from relying on academics’ research but is simultaneously indeterminate enough to make it adaptable to a variety of situations and flexible enough to follow the twists and turns of policy and ideology that everyday politics sometimes makes necessary. (p. 91)

At this time, I am most interested in giving the field time to grow, and I am inclined to understand social innovation as a “quasi-concept.” Such an understanding may allow the field to find a balance between formulating a firm definition and remaining unhelpfully “open.”