Synergies in Innovation: Lessons Learnt from Innovation Ethics for Responsible Innovation

Abstract

This paper draws on the emerging field of innovation ethics (IE) to complement the more established field of responsible innovation (RI) by focusing on key ethical issues raised by technological innovations. One key limitation of influential frameworks of RI is that they tend to neglect some key ethical issues raised by innovation, as well as major normative dimensions of the notion of responsibility. We explain how IE could enrich RI by stressing the more important role that ethical analysis should play in RI. We focus on two transversal issues of IE: the issue of redrawing conceptual boundaries, especially the topic of the artificialization of the world, and the issue of responsibility, especially the notion of total responsibility. We address these two issues from the thematic perspective of IE, thereby generating lessons learnt for RI. These two examples are taken as illustrations and blueprint of the dialogue that should take place between the two fields.

The impact of responsible innovations on the enterprise: Transformation, competitiveness, economic indicators, interaction with society and the state

“…The implementation of responsible innovations in the enterprise is necessary in order to have positive results from innovations that are expressed in their social desirability and ethical acceptability ((L. von Schomberg & Blok, 2021); (Liu, 2018)). If society rejects responsible innovations, this may lead to negative consequences in the activities of the enterprise ( (Hartley et al, 2019); (Bourban & Rochel, 2021)). As a result, there is a conclusion that the adoption of responsible innovations will have a positive impact on society.…”

The dark side of innovation in local authorities: influential typologies and impacted modalities

“…Regarding the last modality, it has been established that innovation in the public sector is closely linked to several variables including the culture and ethics of the concerned public entities (United Nations, 2017). In addition, an unethical innovation has negative effects on ethics in the innovated entity (Bourban and Rochel, 2021). Indeed, culture and ethics have a significant impact on R&D and innovation effectiveness (El Kadiri Boutchich, 2021).…”

“…This feeling is accentuated by replacing the subordination of an individual in his/ her work by the performance measurement established by New Public Management (NPM). Also, nonresponsible innovation can affect legitimacy, democracy and distributive justice in the organization (Bourban and Rochel, 2021).…”

“…As to ethics-culture, innovation finally could challenge the culture and ethics of an organization such as the local authority in its economic, legal and philanthropic variables, given its conventionalist, sequentialist and ethical facets (Anquetil, 2005). Additionally, an innovation not based on ethics engenders ethical problems linked, in particular, to technology and artificialization (Bourban and Rochel, 2021).…”

Types of Technological Innovation in the Face of Uncertainty

“…Given its pervasiveness, innovation-particularly technological innovation-is a hallmark of modern society (Nowotny, 2008). The scientific literature on technological innovation is dominated by the economic approach, which considers innovation as a process to produce commercial goods, possibly focusing on making innovation processes more acceptable and responsible (Bourban & Rochel, 2021;von Schomberg & Blok, 2021a, 2021b. There is no comparable amount of research investigating the intrinsic nature of such processes (as clearly acknowledged in von Schomberg &Blok, 2021a and2021b), and philosophical investigations of innovation are still in their infancy (Blok, 2021).…”