Hana Abdo

Composition of the Jury

Abstract

To address environmental and economic challenges, as well as unmet social needs, new initiatives are being tested. The formalization and institutionalization of these solutions form the foundation of social innovation. This institutionalization is carried out, to a large extent, by nonprofit organizations (NPOs). Citizens, residents, and young people are coming together to implement concrete solutions without being driven by profit or profitability. These organizations are characterized by forms of unpaid work, such as volunteering, and the mobilization of hybrid funding (market-based and non-market-based, or private and public). Some NPOs are characterized by great diversity, bringing together people with very different backgrounds, cultures, and interests. Coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and engaging in various ways, those involved in NPOs constitute a resource marked by diversity. Volunteering is a fundamental characteristic. Volunteers have highly diverse cultural backgrounds, educational levels, professional training, and personal experiences. While cultural diversity is a well-established factor in the international management literature regarding large corporations—demonstrating a link to their capacity for innovation—it remains under-explored in the context of social innovation driven by NPOs. This doctoral dissertation seeks to examine and identify the influence of cultural diversity on social innovation in NPOs and thus addresses the following research question: How does cultural diversity within NPOs foster the emergence of social innovations? This question has been insufficiently addressed in the context of NPOs. Through qualitative research, five case studies were conducted in France and Lebanon, drawing on twenty-two semi-structured interviews and numerous documents from the nonprofits between 2017 and 2020. Based on a methodology grounded in “Grounded Theory,” the results reveal four major factors that foster the launch of social innovations in nonprofits. (1) The “CBO-specific” cultural diversity of stakeholders (in terms of volunteer or employee status, education, career paths, and personal experiences) strengthens the organization’s capacity to develop new methods of interaction within the CBO, generate new ideas, and implement these social innovations in a meaningful way. (2) The organization’s societal mission and the motivations of its volunteers help break down cultural barriers between individuals. This societal mission creates a context conducive to cooperation and the exchange of information. (3) Thanks to the mobilization of volunteers and their diverse backgrounds, the organization has access to resources that would be too costly at market value. (4) Internal management within nonprofit organizations encourages informal interactions among people, thereby fostering the sharing of experiences that build trust, knowledge sharing, and organizational learning—and thus cooperative practices and collective processes of learning and knowledge creation. The thesis defended is therefore as follows: volunteering and internal peer-to-peer management are drivers of social innovation in highly diverse nonprofit organizations. This thesis highlights the influence of cultural diversity on social innovation in nonprofit organizations through volunteering. It demonstrates that peer management is a factor in learning and knowledge sharing that fosters social innovation. It sheds light on the contribution of nonprofit organizations to social innovation.