Shaping the Welfare Society: Unleashing Transformation Through ICT-Enabled Social Innovation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Misuraca ◽  
Giulio Pasi
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Welfare Society ◽  
The Future ◽  
Resilient Communities ◽  
The One

This chapter is set to provoke a debate on how to envision the future of welfare systems, with a specific focus on the European society. To this end, building on the discussion of the man trends and implications of the digital transformation on social protection systems, an institutional perspective to navigate through the social innovation narrative emerged in the last decade, with a particular attention to the role of Information and Communication Technologies to shape a new generation of social services and design policies to foster more resilient communities is proposed. The chapter goes on debating the drivers of change and possible governance innovation mechanisms required for addressing the macro-trends identified and defines two main dimensions of impact directing the future social development of our societies. These will be characterized by the trade-off between stability and change on the one side, and openness and engagement in the digital world. Within this context solidarity and collaboration emerge as key values upon which welfare production mechanisms will be built and resulting in a mix of welfare arrangements based on competition, cooperation and partnership models. The resulting scenarios are then presented, depicting four possible future welfare systems as thought-provoking proposals. While the Collaborative Multi-Layer-Nested Welfare Model represents somehow the ideal scenario to which we should aspire, how to reach such a future is not easy to be answered. Some suggestions are however outlined in the conclusions of the chapter, where it emerges clear that new governance systems and a profound institutional redesign are needed to address old and new societal challenges and make sure that collectively we can build a more resilient welfare society, where solidarity, openness and cohesion are the keyword for a renewed inclusive growth, which take advantage of the potential of digital technologies combined with social innovation and innovative financial mechanisms.

Perspectives for Digital Social Innovation to Reshape the European Welfare Systems: An Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Davide
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Cognitive Frames ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Many

This chapter summarizes the argument of the book “Perspectives for Digital Social Innovation to reshape the European Welfare Systems”. We consider different and parallel perspectives that can support welfare innovation and namely the rise of information and communication technologies in the public sector, the burgeoning initiatives of social innovation in the welfare sector and social changes challenges to the current welfare settlement. This chapter introduces the terms of the discourse starting from the current debate in EU on new policy trends for social protection and its financing. It discusses nature and effects of digital thinking and connects the long-lasting history of social innovation to its recent interpretation as a complex institutional space that changes “the dominant cognitive frames that frame the social problems”. We describe the theoretical implications and the need for multidisciplinary research in a number of fertile areas. Holistic approaches to welfare innovation, emerging digital technologies and the conditions for DSI to produce structural social change need to be studied in depth. Furthermore, the collection reports many situations in which digital social innovations respond to instances in the welfare sector and contribute to the democratic debate with social experiments. Post-hoc analyzes produce interpretative models that will be useful for informing policy decision-making when political agendas are mature. We intended to recreate the lively debate going on in the field of welfare innovation and represent the many “orders of the discourse” a reader may encounter. The innovation of the book itself concerns the logic of presentation of new theories, descriptive models and empirical cases, and the resonance of the subtexts that run through all the chapters.

scholarly journals Socio-economic aspects of cash withdrawal from use

Bankarstvo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 102-127
Author(s):  
Marija Stojmenović
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The One

The notion of a cashless society is slowly becoming an inevitability of the modern way of doing business. Withdrawal of cash from use is the result of wide application of information and communication technologies. Increasing digitalization has contributed to the fact that most transactions are performed via smart devices (phones, tablets, desktops), without the use of cash and without going to the bank. The development of technological innovations, as well as innovations in finance, has undoubtedly contributed to increasing efficiency in business, but the question is whether the increasing digitalization of life and business, which is reflected in the creation of a cashless society, is still so desirable for humanity. The paper focuses on the socio-economic aspects of withdrawing cash from use. On the one hand, states are given the opportunity to influence economic activities even more directly through their central banks, while on the other hand, the issue is raised concerning human freedoms and rights in the digital world, in which it will be possible to electronically control the entire business.

Maximizing the Role of Digital Social Innovation in Building the Future of Social Protection Systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelio Fernández López
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Protection Systems ◽  
The Future ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Social Protection Systems

Social protection systems are in a major process of transformation. Solutions from the past are no longer valid, or at least valid without important adaptations, to address future adequacy, sustainability, and quality of social protections systems. Ageing, changes in the world of work and in the evolving aspirations of citizens will impact, even more than today, on the features of the welfare of the future. Supporting a social investment approach in the agenda of modernization to be pursued, which recognize the relevant role to be played by social innovation, will be a key aspect of the reforms that are needed. ICTs would help in ensuring cost effective services, reducing fragmentation, and favouring integrated social services. This will be, no doubt, a multi-faceted and complex process, but there are choices that can make a difference in maximizing the potential that ICT, s can bring: An adequate leading role of public authorities and institutions at different territorial levels; a full involvement of all relevant stakeholders in a framework of reinforced and changing relationships; and a strategic outcome-based approach, supported by evidence-outcomes will contribute to unleash this potential. This article analyses, based on relevant successful experiences, some of the major interactions involved in the development and translation of enabling-ICTs to the fulfilment of social policy objectives.

scholarly journals Postmodernism as Discourse from Foucault to Habermas

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 106-109
Author(s):  
Loredana Terec-Vlad ◽  
Alexandru Trifu
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Future ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The One

During the last decades, the term postmodernity has been highly invoked, on the one hand, or ignored, on the other hand. It is a term that can be found in the writings of various philosophers and sociologists, and is almost ignored and less meaningful within the economic thinking.At first view and analysis, postmodernity is the successor of the modern age, modernity in other words. However, the concept has much deeper meanings; it regards the future, foreshadowing the new realities of today's world, which are very complex and dynamic, and come under endogenous and exogenous influences, activities and issues that are permanently under the influence of multiple and multidimensional challenges [7]. In fact, the period of globalization, of the new trends of the revolutionary ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), is believed to overlap the period of postmodernism.From the philosophical point of view, but also in consonance with the economic life and realities, the individuals and entities of any nature should be characterized by adaptability, the ability to respond promptly and appropriately to the impulses and reactions that affect that system.

On Elephants, butterflies and lions: social protection, innovation and investment

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Yuri Kazepov ◽  
Tatiana Saruis ◽  
Fabio Colombo
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Social Intervention ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Restructuring Process ◽  
Post War

The rise of social innovation as a paradigm for social intervention is part of the ongoing restructuring process of post-war European welfare systems’. The chapter analyses this transformation focusing on how social innovation relates to other, more institutionalised paradigms of social intervention, namely social protection and social investment. The three paradigms’ main characteristics are represented through a metaphor using animals and their characteristics in order to exemplify their specificities. Elephants, representing the social protection paradigm as awkward, but solid and based on reciprocity and solidarity in the herd. Butterflies, representing the social innovation paradigm as flexible and creative, but fragile and unstable. Lions, representing the social investment paradigm as assertive, active in the preservation of their own status in a competitive context. The conditions within which these paradigms have developed, the institutions involved and their aims and functions are studied through a literature review. Then, the relations among them are investigated through the analysis of 31 case studies on innovation in welfare policies targeted to poverty and social exclusion conducted in the European Countries. The conclusions provide some reflections on the paradigms´ prospects by gaining an understanding of how their different combinations impact on their capacity to reduce poverty and social exclusion.

Neither Welfare State nor Welfare Society: The Case of Hong Kong

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chack-kie Wong ◽  
Kenneth Kin-lam Chau ◽  
Timothy Ka-ying Wong
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Active Citizenship ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Welfare Society

This article points to the simple fact that modern welfare systems are neither welfare states nor are they welfare societies. In reality, they are a combination of both. The current interpretation of the supposed dichotomy of these two institutions has inhibited our understanding of reality. Consequently, this has obscured the complicated ways in which the state and the society have worked together to harmonize the needs for social protection and active citizenship. In the present article, the example of a Chinese welfare system has been used to illustrate that even a welfare system usually not regarded as a welfare state can develop strong universal welfare state programmes. In order to demonstrate the significance of this situation, findings related to public attitudes have been cited to reflect the support of both policy assumptions underlying social protection and active citizenship in the welfare system that is under review.

Alkohol im Tank – Bio-Kraftstoffe und die Grenzen moderner Mobilität

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (136) ◽  
pp. 455-468
Author(s):  
Hartwig Berger
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Future ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Food Market ◽  
The One ◽  
The Third World

The article discusses the future of mobility in the light of energy resources. Fossil fuel will not be available for a long time - not to mention its growing environmental and political conflicts. In analysing the potential of biofuel it is argued that the high demands of modern mobility can hardly be fulfilled in the future. Furthermore, the change into using biofuel will probably lead to increasing conflicts between the fuel market and the food market, as well as to conflicts with regional agricultural networks in the third world. Petrol imperialism might be replaced by bio imperialism. Therefore, mobility on a solar base pursues a double strategy of raising efficiency on the one hand and strongly reducing mobility itself on the other.

The Other Entrepreneurs - Migrant Economies as Spaces for Social Innovation?

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-271
Author(s):  
Claudia Lintner
Keyword(s):  
Social Innovation ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structural Level ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Migrant Entrepreneurship ◽  
False Dichotomy ◽  
Migrant Entrepreneurs ◽  
The One

This article analyses the relationship between migrant entrepreneurship, marginalisation and social innovation. It does so, by looking how their ‘otherness’ is used on the one hand to reproduce their marginalised situation in society and on the other to develop new living and working arrangements promoting social innovation in society. The paper is based on a qualitative study, which was carried out from March 2014- 2016. In this period, twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with migrant entrepreneurs and experts. As the results show, migrant entrepreneurs are characterised by a false dichotomy of “native weakness” in economic self-organisation against the “classical strength” of majority entrepreneurs. It is shown that new possibilities of acting in the context of migrant entrepreneurship are mostly organised in close relation to the lifeworlds and specific needs deriving from this sphere. Social innovation processes initiated by migrant entrepreneurs through their economic activities thus develop on a micro level and are hence less apparent. Supportive networks are missing on a structural level, so it becomes difficult for single innovative initiatives to be long-lasting.

The Futurists. Experts in World Futures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Way

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.

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