We contribute to the social innovation debate, integrating the social entrepreneurship and cooperative-network innovation fields, by investigating the effect of product, technological, and process innovation investments of social enterprises on social and environmental outcomes. Relying on a willingness-ability paradigm, we discuss under which circumstances social innovation unfolds. Drawing on unique survey data collected from a sample of 164 social cooperatives in Italy, we find that investments in product/service and process innovation are positively related to social innovation outcomes. Moreover, the contingent effect of proactiveness and risk-taking suggests that willingness plays a controversial effect on the relationship between innovation input and outcome. Interestingly, the contingent role of low barriers to accessing distribution channels and funding on the one hand and competitor aggressiveness on the other shows the role of ability in unfolding social innovation. Overall, these findings contribute the debate on social innovation and pave the way for future research.

通过调查社会企业的产品，技术和过程创新投资对社会和环境成果的影响，我们为社会创新辩论做出了贡献，将社会企业家精神和合作网络创新领域整合在一起。依靠意愿-能力范式，我们讨论在什么情况下社会创新得以展开。根据从意大利164个社会合作社的样本中收集的独特调查数据，我们发现对产品/服务和流程创新的投资与社会创新成果呈正相关。此外，主动性和冒险精神的偶然效应表明，意愿对创新投入与成果之间的关系具有争议性。有趣的是 较低的壁垒在获得分销渠道和资金方面的偶然作用，一方面是竞争对手的进取心，这表明了能力在开展社会创新中的作用。总体而言，这些发现促进了关于社会创新的辩论，为未来的研究铺平了道路。