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Responsible Innovation

Short Description

Responsible Innovation (RI) is defined as "a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products" (von Schomberg 2013: 63). It is expected that the consideration of ethical and social aspects during innovation processes will lead not only to technological innovations which are socially acceptable but also socially desirable (cf. Matter 2011). In this track, we focus on the characteristics and implications barriers of RI in the business context. A special issue of Journal of Responsible Innovation will be published based on a selection of the presented papers.

Keywords:

Responsible innovation; innovation ethics; stakeholder engagement in open innovation.

Organizers:

Vincent Blok (Wageningen University)(vincent.blok@wur.nl)
Xavier Pavie (Essec Business School)
Victor Scholten (Delft Technical University, Netherlands)

Long Description

It is important to understand that applying responsibility to a research context will raise issues different to the ones faced in an innovation context. Indeed, while the research impetus is generally characterized by its epistemic significance, the goal of innovation is to create value for the organization in a competitive context (Blok & Lemmens, 2014; Pavie & Carthy, 2014). While the concept of responsible innovation partly stems from the sustainable development theory and thus reflects the ambition to address societal needs, it is important to remember that RI is not social or societal innovation, nor is it CSR (Pavie, Scholten & Carthy 2014). This raises the question how responsible innovation in the business context can be characterized. Since the concept of RI is still evolving in various directions (cf. Owen et al. 2013; van den Hoven et al. 2013), the ethical implications for the innovation processes of large corporations and SMEs are still under-researched (Blok & Lemmens, 2014). To what extend it the concept of RI applicable in the business context? What are the drivers and barriers of industrial responsible innovation practices? (Blok, Hoffmans and Wubben 2014)?   

Waldman and Galvin (2008) for instance claim that responsible leaders combine economic orientations with an extended stakeholder orientation. The business objective shifts to optimizing the economic, social and environmental values in order to bring sustainable value for business and society. Waldman and Siegel (2008) stress, however, that responsibility exists only if there is "a clear and directly foreseeable return on investment". The central problem remains that for the short term, strict cost-benefits analyses are more accurate, but projections tend to become more difficult with respect to responsibility in the long term (Pless, et al. 2012; Blok & Lemmens, 2014).

We hereby call for an increased and more specialized focus on the management of the responsible innovation process. While many innovation processes in the past have been blind to ethical impacts and concerns, the concept of responsible innovation challenges us to deeply reflect on both personal values and societal norms when engaging with technological innovations (Nathan 2014). Furthermore, we have to understand how companies deal with moral concerns and how they involve stakeholders in innovation processes in order to generate sustainable value for business and society (Blok 2014). In this respect, it is not only necessary to analyse (ethical) decision-making processes of technological innovations at an organizational level, but also the linkages between innovations and their impact at a macro level.

Track Organizers:

Vincent Blok (Wageningen University)  - vincent.blok@wur.nl
Xavier Pavie (Essec Business School)
Victor Scholten (Delft Technical University, Netherlands)

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