Book co-edited by Helmut Anheier wins 2019 AOM Public & Nonprofit Best Book award

The Public and Nonprofit division of the Academy of Management has selected the book “Social Innovation – Comparative Perspectives” (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018), co-edited by Hertie School Past President and current Professor of Sociology Helmut Anheier, as its Best Book of 2019.

The volume, which contains a series of articles produced for the European Commission research project “ITSSOIN – Impact of the Third Sector as Social Innovation”, was co-edited by Anheier with Gorgi Krlev and Georg Mildenberger of the University of Heidelberg. The authors assert that civic involvement is a better conduit than businesses or government agencies for social innovation – the way in which organisations produce novel ideas to address public problems.

According to the selection committee, the book “…has high scholarly value, as it addresses a gap in the academic literature, is rigorous and combines a review of the relevant literature with empirical investigations. It also clearly outlines methodological approaches for analyzing social innovation, with sufficient detail that other studies could replicate. It also has practical value because it provides guidance to practitioners regarding how they can achieve social innovation in their contexts. The synthesis chapters are well written and bring the chapters together in a coherent way to establish why this book matters.”

The award will be presented at the AOM annual meeting in Boston in August. The Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management brings together scholars, managers, and students who study the public and nonprofit sectors, and the relationships among public, nonprofit, and private sector organisations.

The book is available for download here.