Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) aims to introduce the notion of “responsibility” into research and innovation practices, both in academia and businesses. As such, it addresses corporate innovation management... [ view full abstract ]
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) aims to introduce the notion of “responsibility” into research and innovation practices, both in academia and businesses. As such, it addresses corporate innovation management processes, with the aim to align innovation with “the values, needs and expectations of society”. Even though contemporary corporate sustainability approaches such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or eco-innovation touch upon very similar topics the RRI concept is specific with regard to its focus on tackling these issues at earlier stages of the product life cycles and attuning research and innovation processes in way that they are beneficial for corporations and society. Under this perspective, RRI could be seen as a competing institutional logic to current corporate innovation processes, as it may challenge existing rules, belief systems and organisational practices. Adding to the limited evidence on the implementation of RRI in businesses, our study contributes to and expands this debate by considering RRI as competing institutional logic to extant corporate innovation practices. To this end, our study is guided by the questions “How do businesses perceive the value of RRI for corporate innovation management?”, and “To what extent does RRI compete with existing corporate logics and innovation practices?” We apply an online survey with managers of European companies in the area of smart future living (i.e., smart homes and smart health), comprising businesses from the ICT, telecommunications and related sectors for this purpose. The online questionnaire is structured in a way that organizational pre-conditions are comparable with the managers’ perceptions from implementing RRI. It is based on the assumption that organizational abilities and capacities as well as technological and market trends have a strong influence on the implementation of responsible business practices. The managers’ perceptions are evaluated by means of several CSR business case drivers. Preliminary findings of our research suggest that some RRI principles indeed resonate well with current innovation practices in the area of smart future living, such as open innovation which involves more inclusive and reflective organizational behaviour. Some RRI aspects seem to be less compatible, in particular when they stand in the way of a firm’s desire to reduce costs and risks or gain a competitive advantage. Such impeding aspects include ethical or social intentions for starting new innovation processes as well as attempts to design those processes in a fully transparent way towards all involved stakeholders. In line with Blok and Lemmens, it seems reasonable to conclude that RRI is more than a simple add-on to extant innovation processes, but, in its entirety, needs to be understood as emergent institutional logic that calls for a new understanding of the concept of innovation.
Keywords: Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), Innovation management, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), competing institutional logics
5a. Corporate sustainability and CSR
