Knowledge sharing in open social innovation for sustainable development: evidence from rural social enterprises

Purpose – This study aims to explore the use of knowledge sharing (KS) in delivering open social innovation (OSI) solutions for sustainable development in the context of economically marginalized, rural societies in India. Design/methodology/approach – The study is guided by an exploratory, qualitative approach using an embedded case study design with four social enterprises. The study approaches the use of KS in three stages of OSI: (1) the stages of ideating and prototyping, (2) the initial stages of experimenting and business development and (3) the more current and future-oriented stages of organizations’ strategies for expanding market opportunities for maximizing impact. Findings – The first stage used KS for collaborative efforts among diverse stakeholders to recognize the needs of marginalized people and ideate suitable ecological solutions. The social enterprises acted as orchestrators in this stage. The second stage involved a more dynamic role of KS in the refinement of social enterprises’ market offerings, generating additional innovations and value propositions, which diversified the scope of the social enterprises. This was facilitated by enterprises’ ability to be open systems, which change and evolve through OSI processes and KS. In the third stage, social enterprises’ use of KS was shifted towards future business development by expanding market opportunities with solutions that tackle complex societal and ecological problems, thereby contributing to sustainable development goals. Originality/value – The present study contributes to studies on OSI, focusing on sustainable development and the role played by social enterprises operating in rural, economically marginalized areas, which have been an understudied phenomenon in the open innovation literature.