The approach advocated by Westley and Antadze (2010) interprets social innovation through the dynamics of complex adaptive systems. The authors use systems science and social theory to describe how a new solution — for example, a local community experiment — can become a catalyst for systemic change in the long term.

According to this way of thinking, social innovation is not a linear but an emergent process: small-scale initiatives and experiments transform social structures through self-organization and feedback over time.

The authors describe the process as a “scaling deep” phenomenon: not only the quantitative spread of innovations (scaling out), but also their qualitative embedding — at the level of values, beliefs, and institutional practices — is crucial.

The theory has also had a great influence on resilience-based approaches to social innovation. According to Westley and Antadze, true systemic change requires a multi-level network of connections that connect individual initiatives, community learning, and policy-institutional decision-making.
This approach has been adopted by the OECD, EU, and UN innovation guidelines as one of the foundations of the “systemic social innovation” paradigm.