The institutionalization of social innovation

In the dissertation, I explore the issue of shaping social change through initiatives classified as social innovations. I provide an overview of institutional mechanisms available to organizations and discuss the micro and macro perspectives of institutionalization. The dissertation draws attention to the topic of the subjective experiencing of institutions, i.e., the way in which norms and principles are perceived by individuals during their application. Social innovations emerging as a result of in vivo experimentation, become a space for questioning and recreating social norms, beliefs and rules, based on actual experience. Experimenting provides an opportunity for reaching individual experiences, discussing them, and highlighting the diversity of perspectives of people participating in the process (experiential surfacing). Experience can be a carrier of institutional content in the context of shaping norms, rules and beliefs in group and community processes. During active cocreation of innovation, abstract concepts acquire a practical dimension, thanks to which their internalization is possible. New ways of behaving and perceiving reality travel with people to new contexts, new workplaces, and activities in which the patterns are recreated and thus become subject to dissemination. Based on the conducted research, I propose a model of multidimensional collaboration within social innovation communities (co-doing, co-being, colearning, co-deciding). Collaboration understood this way stimulates reflexivity in the process of creating and developing innovations and makes it possible to draw on the diverse experiences of beneficiaries and co-creators of initiatives. In addition, I describe the ping-pong mechanism of perspectives, which supports the co-creation of solutions and negotiation of norms in group and community processes. From the dissertation, one can also learn about the dynamics of 6 urban communities, the values they currently represent and the ways they morph and develop.