Adel, Heba MohamedZeinhom, Ghada AlyYounis, Raghda Abulsaoud Ahmed2021-08-092021-08-092021-08https://doi.org/10.1108/JHASS-04-2021-0086https://qrgo.page.link/LLjxVPurpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate conceptually and empirically the direct and indirect relationships between university social responsibility (USR), university social innovation strategy (USIS) in terms of social awareness (SA), intention for social innovation (ISI), organisational structure for social innovation (SSI) and innovativeness in social value creation (ISVC) and gaining a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) at quality-accredited faculties of an emerging market. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model was presented and a mixed-methods approach was exploited to fill a research gap detected in strategic corporate social innovation literature. The authors formed a data collection team that contacted all the quality-accredited public and private/international faculties, of which 109 faculties in 11 Egyptian governorates responded and their quality units filled questionnaires that were analysed by structural equation modelling. For comprehensive understanding, qualitative interviews were set to gather data from managers/leaders and teaching staff working at those faculties in quality management and community engagement practices as well as students. Findings – Results demonstrated that USR positively and significantly influenced SCA and USIS. Further, USIS (in terms of ISI, SSI and ISVC) positively and significantly influenced SCA. However, USIS (in terms of SA) had a positive yet insignificant influence on SCA. Indirectly, USIS was found to be partially mediating USR–SCA relationship. Practical implications – University leaders/staff can gain insights on how to adopt differentiation strategies, which enable their institutions to shift from being just socially responsible to becoming socially innovative by presenting solutions to social, economic, cultural, environmental and health-care problems/ challenges within their communities in general and during pandemics. This can be sustained through developing innovative quality-based processes/programmes/services related to education, research and community outreach that better serve social needs to be quality-accredited and unique over their rivals.en-USSocially responsible operationsStrategic university social innovationQuality accreditation in higher educationKnowledge capacitySustainable competitive advantagePandemicArticlehttps://doi.org/10.1108/JHASS-04-2021-0086