Mentoring Processes in Social Innovation: Two Cases from Taiwan

社會創新是將舊有的智慧與新穎的點子創意結合之後，創造新的問題解決方案，經由創新執行的過程產生影響力，達到促進社會變遷的目的，是社會未來發展的重要驅動力。以社會創新為使命的社會創業家，在創新和創業的過程中都需要累積的經驗與專業知識的引導和心理社會的支持，而師徒關係(包含同儕師徒關係與反向師徒關係)的建立與維持可以提供社會創業家所需的支持與引導，擁有師徒關係協助的社會企業家，樂於承先啟後擔任年輕人的導師，因此師徒關係亦為有效培育社會創業家的方法。 本研究嘗試回答的問題是：(1)社會創業家的社會創新來源、社會創新類型、社會影響力和其解決的未滿足社會需求為何？ (2)社會創新中的師徒關係屬於何種發展網絡類型？ (3)社會創新中的師徒關係具備何種師徒關係的功能？。為回答上述問題，本研究選擇擁有師徒傳承關係和社會影響力的社會創業家為研究對象，因此選擇兩組個案：穀東俱樂部創辦人賴青松和田中央聯合建築師事務所創辦人黃聲遠為研究對象，藉由文獻探討、個案訪談和參與觀察，探討賴青松和黃聲遠兩位社會創業家的社會創新和兩組師徒的師徒關係內涵。 本研究發現穀東俱樂部的社會創新融合「風險共同分擔的委託種植」、「預約訂購」和「共同購買」的概念以及創辦人的創意，而提供新商業模式和新平台兩類型的社會創新，解決小農耕種的困境，為有志歸農者鋪設歸農道路，前後吸引超過一千五百人成為穀東，其中更吸引了年輕人學習農耕，創組宜蘭小田田計畫，並且透過社群創造社會影響力，帶來農村文化的復興。 黃聲遠亦吸引許多年輕人加入他的團隊，每年開放實習機會給各校學生，有些人透過實習機會成為團隊成員，於2012年改制更名為田中央聯合建築師事務所。田中央的創新，融合建築設計的創意、在地特色和社會關懷，創造出一個個獲獎無數的社會創新，而田中央的組織創辦精神與運作方式也都充滿社會性目的，提供新產品、新的組織形式和新流程三種類型的社會創新。 賴青松的師徒關係特徵符合導師來源富多樣性且關係緊密的「創業型發展網絡，在創業過程中獲得「職涯」、「心理社會」和「角色楷模」的師徒關係功能，為創業過程中的關鍵助力。宜蘭小田田可視為賴青松的徒弟，他們之間的師徒關係則兼具「傳統型發展網絡」和「創業型發展網絡」的特性。 黃聲遠的師徒關係也符合「創業型發展網絡」的特色，從中獲得「職涯」、「心理社會」和「角色楷模」功能，帶給他深遠的影響。本研究在他的眾多學生中選擇洪于翔與劉黃謝堯為代表，黃聲遠和他們的師徒關係則符合「傳統型發展網絡」和「創業型發展網絡」的特性。賴青松和黃聲遠都擁有良師益友的同儕師徒關係與向下學習的反向師徒關係，並且他們都將自己領受到的師徒關係特性同樣的傳承給徒弟們。 在政府推動青年返鄉創業和整個社會鼓勵社會創新的今天，這兩個個案的社會創意、創新、創業過程，以及其師徒關係值得參考學習。 關鍵字：社會創新、師徒關係、傳承Society’s ability to solve its most pressing problems is largely dependent on social innovation. By combining new ideas with old methods and knowledge, the solutions and changes brought about by social innovation make it the driving force behind future development. A social entrepreneur is someone who has taken social innovation as a core mission, and this requires support in the forms of experience, professional knowledge, and psychosocial acceptance. Mentoring relationships (including peer relationships and reverse mentoring) are one source of the support and navigational guidance a social entrepreneur needs. Further, social entrepreneurs who have benefited from the assistance of a mentoring relationship tend to become mentors in turn. Thus mentoring is an effective way to train future social entrepreneurs. This research seeks to answer the following questions: 1) For social entrepreneurs, where do their social innovations originate? What are the typologies of social innovations? What are their impacts, and what are the social needs left unresolved?; 2) Which developmental network typology does a social innovation mentoring relationship fall under?; 3) What kinds of mentoring functions are present among social innovators? To answer these questions, this study adopts a case study method based on two social entrepreneurs who have both had significant social impact and been engaged in mentoring relationships: 1) the GuDong Club founder Qing-Song Lai, and 2) Fieldoffice Architects founder Sheng-Yung Huang. The analysis and study was informed by an extensive literature review, and data gathered via in-depth interviews and participant observation. Regarding the GuDong Club, this study reveals that the source of their innovation is a combination of mutual risk sharing through commissioned planting, advanced purchasing, cooperative purchasing, and the creativity of its founders. Two social innovation typologies emerged from the analysis, including a new business model and new platform. Their innovations have helped generate solutions to challenges faced by small farmers, while providing guidance to future farmers, generating a customer base of over 1500 consumers over the past decade, and encouraging young people to study and pursue agriculture. Among those is a group that founded the Yilan Xiao Tian Tian (literally “little field”) program. Using community to create social impact, the GuDong Club has helped to revive agricultural village culture. Sheng-Yung Huang also utilizes the power of youth, attracting many young people to join his team. Fieldoffice Architects, a name adopted in 2012, offers an annual student internship program, through which some participants eventually become full team members. Their social innovations emerge from a combination of creative architecture, local features, and social concern, and the results have garnered substantial praise and acclaim. With a strong sense of social purpose at the core of Fieldoffice Architects’ values and operations, this case provides three typologies of social innovations: new products, new processes, and new organizational forms. In terms of mentoring relationships, results of both case studies provide evidence for the importance of mentoring in social innovation. Lai’s mentoring relationship is built on the procurement and sharing of diverse information through strong ties, and therefore can be considered an entrepreneurial development network. This provides professional career, psychosocial, and role modeling functions. Yilan Xiao Tian Tian can be viewed as a descendent of Lai’s, whereby the mentoring relationship can be characterized as both an entrepreneurial development network and traditional development network. Huang’s mentoring relationships can also be characterized as being within an entrepreneurial development network, providing similar professional career, psychosocial, and role modeling functions. Selecting two of his students, Yu-Xiang Hong and Huang-Xie-Yao Liu, as representative examples, the mentoring relationships can be seen as both part of an entrepreneurial development network and traditional development networks. Overall, Lai and Huang both receive support from peer and reverse mentoring relationships, in addition to passing on their mentoring relationship characteristics on to mentees. With governments around the world encouraging social innovation and youth entrepreneurship, the creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurial processes revealed in these two cases, along with the characteristics of the mentoring relationships central to these social innovation processes, are worth learning from. Keywords: social innovation, metoring relationshi