4. Discussion: Trust in Institutions and Social Open Innovation
Theoretically, the growth of social capital conduces to greater social independence, a desire to increase civic activity [
4] and the ability to introduce social innovations.
A general ambivalence that prevailed up until 2011 was partially overcome. According to the averaged subjective evaluations of the inhabitants of the Arctic region, an increase in the level of confidence in the primary institutions was accompanied by an increase in the level of perceived protection. A decrease in the protest potential was in an inverse correlation with the general index of trust in institutions over the last three years of observations. However, the 36% of the population having protest potential were mainly representatives of more educated, affluent and youthful social groups.
An inverse correlation observed between the index of trust and the level of education of the individual indicates that the accumulation of human and social types of capital goes in opposite directions. Protest potential, which accrues in high-resource groups, is primarily associated with the need to respect the freedom of speech, the privacy of personal correspondence, security and protection of the individual and freedom of association (groups and unions). The formation of economic, innovative and other types of activity in high-resource groups is fully confirmed by the results of the study. However, the components of social and human capital are seen to be contradistinguished. During the observation period, the social activity of the inhabitants of the Russian Arctic region drastically decreased, which borders on social apathy and the inability to perceive and implement social innovations.
Respondents trust institutions of protection and management (the courts, prosecutor’s office, governor) much more than representative social institutions (trade unions, political parties and the media). A comparison of our results with those obtained in similar global studies [
55,
56,
57] allowed us to conclude that the level of trust in institutions and the assessment of social well-being in the developed Arctic region are lower than the world average. Thus, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer [
55], the average index of trust in institutions (business, government, NGOs, media) in Russia is 63%, whereas the comparable global figure is 75%. However, trust in NGOs and business is higher than trust in government and media.
It should be noted that regional institutions were taken into consideration in the present study. In the Russian Arctic region, trust in public institutions (sometimes referred to as horizontal trust) is much lower than trust in the Government and institutions of governance, control and protection (or vertical trust, as mentioned earlier, which is often referred to as “trust in government”). The conclusion “fears of loss of employment remain high” was fully confirmed. Moreover, these concerns are more pronounced in the Arctic region than across Russia as a whole. According to our data, more than a third of the inhabitants of the Arctic region consider themselves to be unprotected from a loss of employment and consequent poverty.
The variability in the level of trust is determined to the greatest degree by the level of security, material status, age and education (regression model C). However, trust is also highly correlated with protest potential, satisfaction with life, subjective assessments of health status, type of settlement and the index of respect for rights and freedoms (
Table 2). Among the 10 basic rights and freedoms considered in the present study, the most significant social conditions that determine the credibility of the institutions of power in the region are the observance of the right to security and protection of the person and equality before the law.
The level of well-being, determined through satisfaction with life in general and the coefficient of security, are most significantly determinative of subjective assessments of financial position (
Table A2). Trust in institutions, which accrues with an increase in the sense of security, material well-being and age, is negatively correlated with the level of education (
Table A4). The variability of the security index, which is most reliably explained in terms of the trust index and life satisfaction, decreases when moving from a rural to an urban setting (
Table A5). At the same time, taking into account that the average urban population is much better off and has a higher level of education than its rural equivalent, and the correlation with the type of settlement has a dual aspect. In turn, protest potential, which is primarily determined by the components of human capital (level of education, health, age and type of settlement), is also correlated with the overall satisfaction with life (
Table A3). Thus, it can be assumed that the social and human capital of the inhabitants of the Russian Arctic region accumulates across various social strata. While these social strata can be seen to overlap, the degree of their relationship remains to be determined in subsequent stages of the present study. It is suggested that the use of additional methods for the analysis of classifications will provide more specific explanations for the resulting contradictions.
All of the above characterises a region whose development is seen only in economic terms, being remote from the centre, but continuing to experience significant dependence on it. On the example of the Arctic region, whose residents feel particularly vulnerable to changes in the macroeconomic situation, Francis Fukuyama’s hypothesis is confirmed that the economic development of any regions is dependent on an increase in trusting relationships. Here, trust should not be seen only in first-person terms, but an increase in trust in all major “personified institutions” is also necessary. In more remote areas, the sensitivity of social expectations is significantly higher. At the same time, residents of remote regions are reliant not so much on their own strength, and not even on the resilience of their inner circle, but rather on power “in the centre”. Some moderate optimism is inspired by the finding that residents of the Arctic attempt to protect their violated rights in 70% of cases, with two thirds of these attempts being successful. It is presented that the necessary growth of trust relations is possible, as noted above, through the introduction of social innovations that allow the diversification of communication channels between different actors, meet unmet social needs and contribute to building trust between different participants. For Arctic residents, various models of social innovation, such as social business with the inclusion of an individual agent of social change [
19], can become such social innovation that can ensure the growth of trust in all major “personalized institutions”, from the position of political and social consensus in society, a new participant in the process can be a political broker who can ensure the coordination of the interests of various stakeholders [
25]; the formation of a social contract between science and society [
20], developing the ideals of open science [
17]; the introduction of social technologies, such as blockchain technology [
21], which can replace existing social apparatuses, including bureaucracy; the development of e-government [
27] with a mandatory requirement for the availability of websites [
28] to promote open innovation.
The goal of social open innovation is to make people’s lives better. Social open innovation is technology and concrete solutions that are especially needed for the Arctic society. Social innovations include new social systems, education systems, health care, public communications systems that use innovative approaches and technologies. An analysis of the attitude of the inhabitants of the Arctic region to the authorities showed that the Russian government needs to closely monitor the evolution of the needs of the inhabitants of the Arctic region and provide them with services based on social innovation and encourage business in this. In Arctic conditions, technology and concrete solutions will help improve public health services. The situation is that life expectancy in the Arctic region is lower compared to other regions, and various diseases appear more often. This situation can be influenced using Industry IV technologies—big data, cluster analysis, internet of things. It is required to collect data about each person, conduct an analysis, identify the reasons, and determine the order of further actions. This is how technology helps recognize a problem and solve it quickly.
We find other similar examples in the paper of Jinhyo Joseph Yun [
70], both in the conditions of absolute poverty and the lack of infrastructure in Africa, the Burro founders strive to create both market and social value. Jinhyo Joseph Yun [
70] also showed that the business model will, first of all, be developed based on the connection and combination of technologies with the social market. Diego Corrales-Garay, Eva-María Mora-Valentín and Marta Ortiz-de-Urbina-Criado [
71] emphasize the importance of encouraging collaboration between different agents in the open data ecosystem to develop and improve services.
When considering open innovation, it is important to understand the role of culture in the dynamics of open innovation. According to JinHyo J.Y., Xiaofei Z., KwangHo J. and Tan Y. [
17] culture, in its various forms, has always been a critical driver of innovation. Sergio Evangelist Silva, Ana Venâncio, Joaquim Ramos Silva, Carlos Alberto Gonçalves [
72] take into account the differences between the two countries in a comparative analysis of open innovation in science parks. They study and evaluate how science parks promote open innovation and the role played by public policies in this process. To perform this analysis, they introduce an initial framework based on three dimensions: the launching of science parks, the role of science parks in promoting open innovation, and the role of science parks as public policy vectors for promoting open innovation. Instead of considering country culture, Xia E., Zhang M., Zhu H. [
73] introduce the concept of open innovation culture. Internal system integration, the diversification of innovation income growth, and open innovation culture are the three key factors in the process of the network operation. Culture’s relationship with Environmental Adaptation and Specific Problem Solving has existed for many centuries. Schmidt P. [
74] proves this by analysing the technology of the transformation of materials.
An important issue is the analysis of the structure and mechanism of modern capital economic dynamics and the place of open innovation in modern capital economic dynamics. JinHyo J.Y., DongKyu W., KyungBae [
18] addresses this issue by assuming that the modern economy consists of three sub-economies, such as market open innovation by SMEs and start-ups, closed open innovation by big business, and social open innovation. When analysing social open innovation as a sub-economy, many scientific problems arise that are being investigated, including that of the modern economy as a whole. Let us name some of them. We find new ways of entrepreneurship development in Pinto H., Nogueira C., Carrozza C., D’Emery R. [
75]. These authors propose to form a research and innovation strategy on the principles of “smart specialization”. The novelty of smart specialization strategies adopts a “process of entrepreneurial discovery”, that is, the opening of a new sector or activity arising from existing localized capacities and market demands.
Charlotta Sirén, Vinit Parida, Johan Frishammar, Joakim Wincent [
76] note that time is a crucial yet scarce resource in innovation management. However, the way in which entrepreneurial enterprises allocate temporal resources in innovation remains largely unexplored. The authors propose a conceptualization of innovation polychronicity, which is defined as the extent to which a firm’s innovation culture promotes simultaneous engagement in multiple innovation activities. In the article by Xhimi Hysa, Mario Calabrese [
77] presents a study that attempts to understand if the innovation “belongs” more to the capitalist or to the entrepreneur, and if there is any difference between the capitalist and the entrepreneur in terms of commitment, risk, and expectations. The capitalist is financially committed by offering the capital, expecting as a return the financial interest rate, and assuming a financial risk. Our opinion is that it would be good to establish such a rule for determining the financial interest rate: the entrepreneur refers to the capitalist, and the labour intensity of the capitalist’s job to the labour intensity of the entrepreneur’s job.
The answer to the question of how social open innovation succeeds can be found in publications. Jinhyo Joseph Yun, Abiodun A. Egbetoku, Xiaofei Zhao [
78] presented a complete description of the processes of achieving success in a social open innovation using the examples of two case studies. Through the in-depth study of case studies, we can not only understand the success paths of these social open innovations, but also develop strategies for new cases of social open innovation. The generalisation of that stated in the article leads us to the conclusion that an economy based on social principles should take into account non-formal production volumes, but the impact of production on health, ecology, education and quality of life in general.
The article by Jinhyo Joseph Yun, KyungBae Park, ChoongJae Im, ChangHwan Shin, Xiaofei Zhao [
79] confirms that social enterprises can be successful over time. The authors developed and applied a social open innovation dynamic model to ten Korean social enterprises and identified the success factors for social open innovation as well as the specific dynamics underlying it. We conclude from the example of ten Korean social enterprises that a new economy based on social principles is emerging.
We find a description of the interaction between companies in the context of open innovation in Sara Holmes, Palie Smart [
80] and we see the value of an open innovation approach in solving social problems. This example shows how the practice of open innovation in voluntary interorganizational collaboration leads to synergies.
When considering innovation, particular attention is paid to the use of the quadruple helix concept. This concept extends the popular triple helix paradigm by pointing out the fact that along with science, industry and the state, society plays a key role in the innovation process, which is often the end user of innovation. The quadruple helix concept is described by Carayannis E., Grigoroudis E. [
81] and micro- and macro-dynamics of open innovation with a quadruple-helix model by Yun, J.J.; Liu, Z. [
82].
The quadruple helix concept visualizes the collective interaction and exchange of knowledge in the country within the following four subsystems: education system (human capital); economic system (economic capital); political system (political and legal capital); and civil society (social and information capital). The article [
82] discusses how sustainability can be achieved through open innovation in the Industry IV, propose a conceptual framework to understand open innovation micro- and macro-dynamics with a quadruple-helix model for social, environmental, economic, cultural, policy, and knowledge sustainability.
Thus, the study of the problem of trust in the institutions of power, carried out with the data of the Arctic region and the analysis of open social innovations, leads us to the following conclusions:
The old economic model is changing in the Arctic conditions of life, classical economic theory with its famous “invisible hand of the market” in the Arctic conditions has little to do with reality, open social innovations are becoming more and more widely available and contribute to solving various problems.
For the Arctic society, it is necessary to form new, innovative systems of education, health care, systems of public communications, using innovative approaches and technologies. Open social innovation can meet the social needs that are not met by existing institutions, especially in harsh climatic conditions, and ultimately, can build trust between different actors.