IKEA’s Social Innovation Strategy at H22 : Understanding the Narrative of Social Innovation in Cities Through Living Laboratories and Communicating CSR

Sammanfattning

To increase the understanding of the role of CSR in global development practice, this study examined ‘The Oracle’ podcast series, one of IKEA’s projects at H22, Helsingborg’s open innovation platform and city expo. The current transformations in our communities are met with traditional CSR approaches which are being exchanged for innovative models that encourage participation, consultation and engagement. The ethical discourse on businesses engaging in social affairs remains to be contested, but analysis on individual interests in shared issues using a communication view of CSR leads to innovation in network societies. At the same time, development practitioners are organizing social learning systems to communicate social change (C4D). Findings showed that storytelling can be used to study the shared sustainable development priorities between governments and businesses, and that the functionality of these narratives are just as important as the information they hold. Further research can be made to investigate the function of social innovation as a catalyst for CSR and C4D to find compatible solutions that address global development problems.