Autism is both a disability and a difference.We need to find ways of alle- viating the disability while respecting and valuing the difference. 1 —Simon Baron-Cohen, autism expert The example of Specialisterne, its mission and accomplishments, inspire us at the broadest human level. It’s a story about a father’s love and sacrifice for his son, about members of society left behind and counted out who return in triumph. About mothers moved to tears by the long-awaited and fervently hoped-for suc- cesses of their children. And about good done for individuals that is also good for us all. The importance of such stories (as the pages of this fine publication demon- strate, there are many others) has been widely agreed. According to The Economist, social entrepreneurship was the hot topic among world leaders at the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 2 That entrepreneurship has taken a social turn is an exhilarating fact both for the good it can do and for the new challenges social systems and contexts present to conventional ideas about management. Within such enterprises, we find unfamiliar business questions (Why do people care for each other?) channeled within familiar frames (How can we design incen- tives to make the most efficient use of such motives?). These questions, and others like them, invite us to reflect in new business-relevant ways on issues of our own human nature and how we interact. Thorkil Sonne started Specialisterne to create employment opportunities for people like his young son, who had recently been diagnosed with autism. As an expert in information technology, Sonne realized that some of the traits he © 2008 Robert D. Austin and Javier Busquets 28 innovations / winter 2008 Robert D. Austin and Javier Busquets Managing Differences Innovations Case Discussion: Specialisterne Robert D. Austin is Professor of Managing Creativity and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School and Associate Professor (on leave) at Harvard Business School, where he chairs the school's executive program for Chief Information Officers. His new book on managing in creative businesses will be published in 2009 by Stanford University Press. Javier Busquets is Professor and Department Chair of the Department of Information Systems Management at ESADE Business School. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/itgg.2008.3.1.28 by guest on 22 October 2021