The purpose of this paper was to support in the unraveling of the various complexities problematizing the concept of social innovation. The concept, generally understood as those innovations that serve to solve societal and social issues, is plagued by ambiguity and weak conceptualization which makes empirical studies difficult. To achieve the paper’s goal a concept analysis, a form of qualitative text analysis method based in philosophy and deductive hermeneutics, was performed. The results of the study were a new definition of social innovation that synthesizes previous definitions of social innovation as a multi-dimensional construct and ideas of social innovation being motivated by altruistic ideals. This new definition strikes a balance between specificity and generality by combining a variation of nuanced conceptual attributes with a clear distinction from the similar, economically motivated market innovations, including those market innovations that, with or without intention, also creates public value and helps combatting societal issues.