Social Innovation: Business Analysis and Community Engagement Report

This report examines social innovation strategies, particularly those employed by The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) in Australia. It explores the application of social innovation and community engagement theories to improve the health and wellbeing of the ageing population, focusing on creating age-friendly environments through automation and information and communication technologies (ICTs). The report discusses the importance of community engagement, including information sharing, shared decision-making, and collective action to prevent social exclusion. It also provides a SWOT and PESTLE analysis, identifies challenges in implementation, and explores the impact of social innovation on housing, healthcare, and overall community wellbeing. The report highlights the need for innovative approaches to address the challenges faced by the ageing population, emphasizing the importance of providing them with physical and financial support to live independently. The report also considers the baby boomer generation and its impact on the economy. The report concludes with a discussion on the challenges of implementation, including the need for employment opportunities and the risks associated with lack of skills and knowledge within the workforce.

Running head: BUSINESS
Business
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Executive summary
The report depicted about the various aspects of the social innovation approach
considering the impact created through various approaches by the organization named The
Australian Centre for Social Innovation in Australia. The social innovation theory and
community disengagement theory were considered for ensuring that the proper management of
health and wellbeing of the ageing people could be possible. The management of automation
systems along with the use of information and communication technologies to foster the
development of age friendly environment along with better public engagement of the older
individuals and making them a part of the community, thus preventing social exclusion as well.
The guide to effective participation and engagement should include the sharing and exchange of
information along with better management of those information, shared decision making and
acting together for fulfilling the interests of the community, which had resulted in start of
innovation age.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Social innovation and community engagement theory....................................................................3
Proposed social innovation..............................................................................................................5
SWOT and PESTLE........................................................................................................................6
Challenges for implementation........................................................................................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The report introduces the concepts of social innovation and engages the community to
create proper social health and wellbeing with ease and effectiveness. The topic will illustrate
about the various social innovation concepts along with the theory of community engagement
required to improve the lives of people and benefit the organization and community as a whole
too. The social innovation by the organization named The Australian Centre for Social
Innovation is aimed at the creation, development, adoption and integration of the existing and
new systems, concepts and management of business practices to put the people and planet at first
(tacsi.org.au 2018). The members associated with the social innovation at The Australian Centre
for Social Innovation and are working across the various sectors have focused on the creation of
a better world and health and meeting the social needs.
Social innovation and community engagement theory
The social innovation aims at the management of various strategies, concepts, ideas and
concepts within the organization to fulfill the social needs and requirements, furthermore manage
the working conditions, provide education or does something good for the development of
community along with proper management of health and wellbeing too. The present topic
prioritizes on the social innovation through redesigning ageing and promoting Innovation Age
for enhancing the lives of elderly people and making them more engaged with the community as
a whole. In the recent years, there has been increase in the development of social innovations
considering the theories and practices managed to respond to the social issues and challenges
(Herrera 2015). There are multiple theories including the disengagement theory, activity theory,

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all of which are related to the productive ageing. All these theories and concepts can not only
explain the concepts of innovation ageing, but will also demonstrate the use of various
information and communication technologies, i.e., ICTs such as the inclusion of automation
procedures, robotics and new health and long term models for the development and governance
of age-friendly environment and public engagement of the elderly individuals into the productive
services provided by the community organizations and the public nowadays (Grimm et al. 2013).
There are multiple actors who are responsible or managing the social innovation such as the
community groups, charities, businesses, Government and combining all these as well to handle
the social issues and promote health and life long benefits to the elderly people.
The ageing disengagement theory enables mutual withdrawal from various activities like
disengagement, which result in lack of interaction between the ageing person and other people
within the social system. It is natural that with increasing ages, the older individuals withdraw
from the society and this results in social exclusion. The disengagement theory, formulated by
Cummin and Henry, enables disengaging process associated with the damage of skills and
abilities, which can result in training the young adults and make them take over the roles played
by the people who disengage (Mount and Martinez 2014).
The guide to effective participation and engagement covers various aspects including the
management of information, consultation, making decisions together, acting together as an unit
and finally supporting the independent interests of the community at large. The community
engagement theory enables focusing on the major aspects including the planning and decision
making, development of community consisting of elderly individuals and engaging the people in
service delivery and accomplishes the business goals and objectives with ease and effectiveness

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(Mirvis et al. 2016). The planning and decision making process enables managing the local, state
and national Government levels along with the involvement of Government agencies to engage
communities and make the ageing population lead a better and health life. The community
development is an integral aspect of community engagement that can not only make the people
within the community aware of the procedures to manage the ageing population, but also
integrating the strength based practices with the business goals and objectives of The Australian
Centre for Social Innovation (BOSIO 2014).
Proposed social innovation
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation enables partnership working with other
companies to improve the way the elderly people can live with increasing age. The company has
collaborated with the elderly people and supported the NGOs, Government bodies, business
organizations and charity foundations to re-organize or strengthen the approaches for dealing
with the issues such as diversity in housing, aged care and end of life. For the last few years, the
individuals living in Australia aged over 75 years have been doubled. The baby boomers
generation is considered as the wealthiest and those with the most proper health conditions
(Riva, Marsan and Grassi 2014). Though it can be see that the baby boomers cannot change the
ageing, still it will create an impact on the economy of Australia and benefit the society as a
whole. The vision of The Australian Centre for Social Innovation is to believe that the people in
Australia have the rights to age in a proper way and not just those individuals who can afford to
do it.

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The social innovation approach involves creating scopes and opportunities for them to
spend time at homes, streets, parks and in other places for understanding the future that the
elderly individuals want while progressing their age. It can be difficult for the elderly individuals
in the future to cope up with and deal with critical issues like disengagement and social
exclusion. Often they are being discriminated and neglected by their families and friends, which
makes them feel lonely and not being able to afford the necessities required to age well (Brooke
et al. 2013). Arranging proper homes for the ageing people can be one of the major issues
experienced while handling the ageing community. The social innovation approach by TACSI
enables the creation of new models and concepts for the ownership of homes that can not only
guarantee the security of their tenure, but will also manage proper support through sustainable
financing options provided to the ageing people within the community. The designing and
development of housing and urban architectures can increase the social connectedness and make
the people communicate with each other consistently for improving the overall health and
wellbeing of people within the community (Engel et al. 2014). The development of a social
housing system can enhance the abilities of individuals to gain access to the housing in case they
are neglected by their families due to their age, furthermore adapt to the changing needs of the
community and ensure proper connection between the people within the ageing community.
TACSI has considered social innovation by prioritizing on the essential components including
the ageing people and provide them with both physical and financial sustainability support so
that they can live independently in the future without needing any support from others (Botero
and Hyysalo 2013).

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SWOT and PESTLE
Strengths
 The social innovation approach has
supported the ageing community to
access good quality housing at
affordable prices.
 Improved health and wellbeing through
both physical and financial support
 Absence of social exclusion, due to
which the ageing people could interact
with each other and thus facilitate
community engagement towards the
ageing community as well.
 With the social innovation approach,
home is considered as an expression, an
asset and a gateway, which allows the
people to express themselves, enhance
the reliability of tenure and create better
access points for remaining connected
with people and the community
(Boudiny 2013).
 Changes and improvements in
Weaknesses
 The social innovation approach is time
consuming and complex as well
 The affordability for the housing for
older individuals have declined, which
can be one of the major weakness of the
social innovation approach
 Lack of awareness among the people
regarding the housing affordability
 Though the social innovation approach
is implemented, still the elderly
individuals are neglected due to lack of
physical and financial support
(tacsi.org.au 2018).

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legislative frameworks for increasing
the outcomes for older tenants and
provide the older women with safe and
secured living conditions.
Opportunities
 Creating scopes for changing the
legislative frameworks and improve the
outcomes for older individuals.
 Developing new approaches that can
enable the older women to create good,
convenient and safe living situations.
 The behavioral approach is established
to develop the social capabilities of the
individuals who may be subjected to
risks of negligence and can face social
exclusion.
Threats
 Threats could be the lack of
collaboration and partnership working
 Due to lack of knowledge and
information, the people might face
difficulties to work according to the
social innovation approach (Toepoel
2013).
The political factors include considering the influence created by the Government
agencies and other regulatory bodies that can affect the business functioning and implement the
Social innovation and community engagement theories for promoting social innovation approach
and ensure successful management of ageing community by providing them with enough help
and financial support through proper funding and investments. The external agencies and makers

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of policies have allowed the company to maintain proper values, culture and ethics to ensure that
the social innovation approaches are delivered to the clients properly, furthermore generate
revenue through the financial support provided by the Government agencies to improve the
economic growth f the country. The social factors include creating employment opportunities for
many people work for the company and deliver fulfill the requirements of clients for social cause
and benefits (tacsi.org.au 2018). The technological advancements have helped in implementing
ICT to support steady business functioning along with wider reach to the areas to identify the
numbers of elderly individuals. The legal factors include abiding by the laws, rules and
regulations implemented by the Government to ensure successful business functioning whereas
the environmental factors include the business’ contributing towards the protection of
environment and keeping it healthy for the people to live in within the community.
Challenges for implementation
One of the major challenges can be the ageing population, because of which, various
new programs, initiatives related to the social innovations have been adopted to respond to the
negative outcomes. Lack of employment opportunities while working as a baby boomer is
another issue while data redundancy could be another challenge faced while implementing the
social innovation approach. There could also be increased amounts of risks associated with the
employees’ working because of the lack of skills and knowledge among them to drive towards
sustainability and could hinder the innovation age too (Herrera 2015). This might affect the
volunteering activities negatively and make the social innovation approach unsuccessful as well.
Unethical conducts like gaining money for own benefits like gaining money for the approach
towards benefiting the ageing population could deteriorate the brand image.

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Conclusion
The report focused on the concepts of social innovation approach to start the innovation
age and for allowing the ageing population to live well for the rest of their lives. All these ideas
of the social innovation were developed with the focus on strengthening the civil society,
furthermore ensures dealing with the social issues. The consideration of ageing disengagement
theory and social innovation theory further addressed the issues faced by the ageing community
and how the theories could assist in promoting lifelong healthy benefits and support for the
elderly people. The Australian Centre for Social Innovation formed partnerships with the
charities and Government agencies to deal with the issues and ensured proper management of
housing and affordability for the older individuals who had been neglected r were subjected to
social exclusion.

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References
BOSIO, A.C., 2014. Patient engagement: the key to redesign the exchange between the demand
and supply for healthcare in the era of active ageing. Active Ageing and Healthy Living: A
Human Centered Approach in Research and Innovation as Source of Quality of Life, 203, p.85.
Botero, A. and Hyysalo, S., 2013. Ageing together: Steps towards evolutionary co-design in
everyday practices. CoDesign, 9(1), pp.37-54.
Boudiny, K., 2013. ‘Active ageing’: from empty rhetoric to effective policy tool. Ageing &
Society, 33(6), pp.1077-1098.
Brooke, E., Goodall, J., Handrus, M. and Mawren, D., 2013. Applying workability in the A
ustralian residential aged care context. Australasian journal on ageing, 32(2), pp.130-134.
Engel, N., Van Hoyweghen, I., Krumeich, A. and Van Hoyweghen, I. eds., 2014. Making global
health care innovation work: Standardization and localization. Springer.
Grimm, R., Fox, C., Baines, S. and Albertson, K., 2013. Social innovation, an answer to
contemporary societal challenges? Locating the concept in theory and practice. Innovation: The
European Journal of Social Science Research, 26(4), pp.436-455.
Herrera, M.E.B., 2015. Creating competitive advantage by institutionalizing corporate social
innovation. Journal of Business Research, 68(7), pp.1468-1474.
Mirvis, P., Herrera, M.E.B., Googins, B. and Albareda, L., 2016. Corporate social innovation:
How firms learn to innovate for the greater good. Journal of Business Research, 69(11),
pp.5014-5021.
Mount, M. and Martinez, M.G., 2014. Social media: A tool for open innovation. California
Management Review, 56(4), pp.124-143.

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Riva, G., Marsan, P.A. and Grassi, C. eds., 2014. Active ageing and healthy living: A human
centered approach in research and innovation as source of quality of life (Vol. 203). IOS press.
tacsi.org.au. (2018). Home | The Australian Centre for Social Innovation. [online] Available at:
https://www.tacsi.org.au/ [Accessed 19 Sep. 2018].
Toepoel, V., 2013. Ageing, leisure, and social connectedness: how could leisure help reduce
social isolation of older people?. Social indicators research, 113(1), pp.355-372.