Learning outcomes

The major goal of this course is to provide students with a better and more rigorous understanding of the key role that social innovation can play within contemporary economic systems (i.e. within post-industrial economies), within a sustainable development framework. In order to shed light on the effects of social innovation on the pursuit of sustainable development goals, the course will focus on key interplays between nonprofits, for-profit firms and public organizations. These complex phenomena can be fruitfully analyzed through the lens of some of the major theoretical constructs and empirical findings obtained in the last years within the framework of nonprofit sector economics (first part of the course). The second part of the course will mainly deal with recent empirical evidence on the relationships between various forms of successful social innovation and pursuit of sustainable development goals.