Scaling Social Innovations : The Case of Gram Vikas

The purpose of this study is to better understand the process of innovation transfer between social sector organizations, an area that is at the nexus of research on social entrepreneurship, scaling, and knowledge transfer. We are guided by a primary research question: How are social innovations transferred to other organizations to increase their impact? Drawing on field observations, interviews, and archival data from an ongoing social innovation transfer attempt in rural India, we show that the scaling process is fraught with challenges, but can nevertheless be managed by focusing on the “Arrow core” of elements which enable a social innovation’s success