Local authorities are increasingly encouraged to mobilize actors of the “third sector” by enabling them to identify and drive “social innovation,” where both the state and the market fail to design new strategies for the satisfaction of needs. On the basis of three case studies, we observe an injunction from the public authorities (at regional and infra-regional level) to cooperate and produce social innovations. We analyze the tension between these two dimensions: How do the social economy and local authority actors respond to this injunction to innovate and contribute their own strategies? In each of the three case studies, actors from the social economy and local authorities seek pathways for the creation of economic activities, by producing identities and collective assets used as common goods.