From compliance culture in elder care to resident focus innovation as social entrepreneurship: a global opportunity

Abstract

This paper reviews the international need for elder care and discusses a model for creating an internal environment for sustainable innovation based on an empirical study of elder care facilities that act entrepreneurially and support innovation to deliver resident valued services that meets policy guidelines aligned to community and government expectations and standards. A validated and adapted audit instrument is used to: identify the opportunities for corporate social entrepreneurship within the Australian elder care industry; evaluate the role of the board, management, and staff as care providers in targeted innovation initiatives including marketing to potential residents; and measure sustainable innovation. Analysis indicates that the research instrument can both assess the climate for social entrepreneurship and innovation and identify the training areas for sustained innovation within elderly care organisations.