Social innovations (SIs) frequently bring previously unrelated actors, ideas, and practices together in new configurations with the goal of addressing social needs. However, the dizzying variety of definitions of SI and their dynamic, exploratory character raise dilemmas for evaluators tasked with their evaluations. This article is based on a…

This article focuses on the design of a critical realist review that deployed Bhaskar's resolution, redescribing, retroduction, eliminating, identifying, and correcting schema and Pawson and Tilley's Context-Mechanism-Outcome configuration underpinned by realist social theory. Methodologically, the review examined the relationship between…