Sustainable through Digital – A Research Agenda for Digital Social Innovation

To address the detrimental sustainability challenges of our time, the synthesis of two currently isolated innovation research streams is promising: 1) Digital innovation leveraging digital technologies to create novel solutions, and 2) social innovation creating social value and thus accelerating sustainable development. Bringing together both research streams, this study aims to build a knowledge foundation on so-called digital social innovation (DSI). First, by identifying 135 studies in the DSI realm through a structured literature review, we analyse and synthesise their contribution via a theory-based multidimensional framework spanning digital technology, digital innovation, and social innovation. Next, to get a comprehensive overview of existing DSI research, this study provides a research agenda validated by expert scholars comprising 12 clear-cut research pathways for DSI. Our findings guide the advancement of DSI research and enable practitioners to leverage DSI in light of the current societal challenges.