The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative examination which explored the Social Innovation Orientation (SIO) of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practitioners as part of a broader contribution towards developing an augmenting and or an alternative mechanism to address the challenges faced by CSR practitioners and companies in fulfilling societal expectations in developing countries. The study sought to answer the question: In what ways are CSR practitioners building an SIO? The study also aimed to answer questions on whether any profound change or challenge was posed by CSR practitioners to the current systems through basic routines, authority flows, beliefs and resources (Westley and Antadze, 2010). The status of CSR advancement by companies was also explored. These questions were answered in the context of a developing country, more specifically South Africa. In order to set a relevant contextual background, the literature review covered two main broad variables, CSR and social innovation, as well as a detailed description of an SIO through four facets, namely: social experimentation, collaboration and inclusivity, scale mind-set, and institutional impact. The sample comprised CSR practitioners who met the sampling criteria. Information was gathered from these CSR practitioners using a semi-structured interview protocol. An analysis of the data gathered led to the description of the patterns which emerged, which presented across a continuum both narratively and graphically those CSR practitioners who were making the strides on the SIO continuum and those that were not. The study found that even with the CSR practitioners' strong desire to be viewed as delivering results, they needed to manage the expectations of stakeholders, particularly within their own companies, regarding what success was and what it was not. It was discovered that being more deliberate contributes to the building of an SIO. Through a focus on not repeating past mistakes while still working together with stakeholders in a manner which is proactive instead of defensive, CSR practitioners could be building an SIO. The results showed that fostering a participatory and inclusive environment from an early stage was beneficial in the development of an SIO. Another discovery was that the size of an intervention was of less importance than the significance of its potential impact. Practical contributions are proposed for companies and CSR practitioners as a result of this research, some of which are: a support approach to existing mechanisms, a component to be used in recruitment and performance appraisal, and a view to understanding social innovation and what it can mean for the company-centric perspective. Overall, the study revealed that CSR practitioners are building an SIO. Social experimentation, and collaboration and inclusivity were found to be more prevalent than the scale mind-set and institutional impact. SIOs were not void of the latter elements. These two elements should not be discarded. Whilst the SIO elements have been positioned as non-linear, it was revealed that some categorical features and linearity did exist.

Innovation anses fortfarande vara en praktisk ledarskapsutmaning, speciellt eftersom många företag idag inte har ett systematiskt sätt att mäta innovation. Trots detta är innovation en av de viktigaste drivkrafterna för hållbar ekonomisk tillväxt. Denna studie hade därför som syfte att utforska vad ett företag kan göra för att arbeta med innovation och vad ett företag kan mäta för att avgöra om de ökar sin innovationsförmåga. För detta ändamål har en induktiv och kvalitativ forskningsansats valts ut, inspirerad av klassisk grundad teori. Studien resulterade i att en första modell för innovationsorientering togs fram som visar vad ett företag kan göra för att arbeta med innovation och att en andra modell togs fram för mätning av innovationsförmåga som integrera olika innovationskoncept och nyckeltal och visar vad ett företag kan mäta för att avgöra om deras innovationsförmåga ökar. Studiens slutsats är att även om det finns ett flertal olika nyckeltal som företag kan välja på för att mäta sitt företags innovationsförmåga, så bör dessa nyckeltal anpassas till företagets affärsmål och specifika affärskontext, samt att en sådaninnovationsmätning kräver att innovationsrelaterade koncept såsom ”nytt”, ”skapa nytta”, och ”bli nyttiggjort”, integreras med de nyckeltal som företaget väljer ut för sin innovationsmätning. / Innovation is still considered a practical leadership challenge, especially since many companies today do not have a systematic way to measure innovation. Despite of that, innovation is considered one of the most important drivers of sustainable economic growth. This study therefore aimed to explore what a company can do to work with innovation and what a company can measure to determine if they have increased their innovativeness or innovation capability. For this purpose, an inductive and qualitative research approach was selected, inspired by classical grounded theory. The study resulted in the development of a first model for innovation orientation that shows what a company can do to work with innovation, and the development of a second model for the measurement of innovativeness that integrates different innovation concepts and key performance indicators and shows what a company can measure to determine if their innovativeness has increased. The study’s conclusion is that although there are several different key performance indicators that companies can choose from to measure their company’s innovativeness, such indicators should be adapted to the company’s business goals and specific business context, and that such innovation measurement requires that innovationrelated concepts such as being “new”, providing “benefits”, and being “useful”, are integrated with the company’s chosen key performance indicators when used for innovation measurement.