The Social Dynamics of Frame Acceptance in Organisational Innovation Settings

Systemic design aims for desirable change in complex, multi-stakeholder social systems in approaching complex societal challenges. For such social innovation to be effectively implemented, multiple stakeholders in organisations are often required to change their (course of) action. To enable such actions, an acceptance of a reframe of the challenge is often required. In this paper, we argue that an organisation can be considered the manifestation of its members' frames at any given time. Innovation and design practitioners experience challenges creating the desired change of action in organisational settings following a reframing activity. Since frames are social constructs, we argue that the social dynamics of influence on frame acceptance is an important concept to consider. We define social dynamics as the ways and extent to which the behaviour of actors in a social interaction influences the thinking and doing of other actors in that interaction. Understanding this might help develop strategies to increase the impact of innovation efforts in complex organisational and systemic settings. In this paper, we conceptualise the social dynamics of frame acceptance through a literature review of frames, organisations, reframing, and innovation. We conclude with a research agenda to work towards an improved understanding of how social dynamics influence frame acceptance in reframing processes in organisational settings.