Issues of social innovations among social organizations in Lithuania

Abstract

This article aims to examine main issues of social innovations among social organizations in Lithuania. It is the second article in the series of publications on particularities of social innovation processes in emerging economies. Starting from the theoretical background of social innovations and presenting the model of social innovations this article tends to reveal a set of solid results, derived from semi-structured interviews held in Vilnius on May 2011. 15 in-depth interviews were carried out with experts from different social innovations-related organizations such as civil service, associations and nongovernmental organizations, social businesses as well as academic institutions. The conceptual model built in the first article serves as the guideline in the process of analysing and presenting the main findings of the research. As the consequence of the research the created model of ‘Dragon-butterfly hybrid’ paradox emerges in different shapes and shows new interesting aspects of social innovations. To sum up, the importance of cooperation within the national innovation system of Lithuania is highly important, and application of innovative management tools that play a crucial role in social innovation processes should be emphasized.