Technological Innovation and Social Change

"The Project 'Beyond the pro-innovation bias' emerged as a response to a concern about unintended and undesirable consequences of innovation amongst a group of researchers at the Department of Management and Organisation. Although innovation is one of the most commonly mentioned concepts in social science unintended undesirable consequences of innovation are rarely studied. This project addresses this shortcoming and implications following from it.
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Why is this important?
In his review of innovation literature twenty-five years ago, Rogers (1983) noticed that only 0.2 % of innovation research articles addressed consequences of innovation. To follow up this study this project (Sveiby et al., 2009) conducted a study including a literature review of all articles in the EBSCO database, with innovation in the title and which study undesirable consequences. Although 'innovation' hits reach hundreds of thousands, refining searches into 'negative or undesirable consequences' decreases the hits radically. The study found only 26 articles on unintended and undesirable consequences of innovation; 1 per 1000, a proportion that has not changed since the 1960's. Hence it seems important to ask why this is the case, what the implications are and how excluded or silenced voices can be promoted in the research field of innovation.

What does the project explore?
The project attempts to go beyond the 'pro-innovation bias'. Innovation research seems to be built on a fundamental assumption that 'innovation is good', which limits the ability of decision makers and change agents to anticipate unintended and undesirable consequences. Hence, a central theme is to develop an understanding of how this bias is constructed in order to explore how it could be deconstructed.

Another central theme of the project is the separation of discourses on desirable and undesirable consequences. More specifically, undesirable consequences of innovation can potentially follow from all types of innovation. These consequences are to some (unknown) degree studied in disciplines such as biology, medicine, environmental studies and sustainable development, and theories are constructed within perspectives drawing on sociology, CMS, STS, etc. Innovation research, however, seems to have implicitly isolated itself from considering them. The separation of discourses in this manner can have dangerous implications. One is that innovation studies have become "routinized". Another is a case of self-defeating purpose; as change agents receive little practical guidance from innovation researchers on how to consider undesirable consequences, they may cause unnecessary suffering among stakeholders, thereby reducing the net value of an innovation. Yet another is a self-feeding vicious circle; unless undesirable consequences are highlighted by innovation researchers, funding bodies see little point in funding such studies, thereby further reducing research. ...."

Papers by researchers who will take part in the workshop:

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Annick CASTIAUX, professor:
Can
Corporate Responsbility foster innovation in high-tech firms? [pdf] 194k

David EDGAR, professor:
Innovation
in Practice and Practising Innovation [docx] 770k and
Revealing
Nuance in Entrepreneurial and Innovative Activity [docx] 15k

Yrjö ENGESTRÖM, professor:
The
Change Laboratory as a Cultivator of Employee-Driven Innovations [docx]
21k

Jan FAGERBERG, professor:
The
evolution of Norways national innovation system [pdf] 234k and
Innovation
- A Guide to the Literature [pdf] 92k

Martin FOUGÈRE, assistant professor:
Against
Corporate Responsibility (Fougere & Solitander) [pdf] 231k

Lidia GALABOVA, assistant professor and PhD:
Six
Sigma innovation [pdf] 106k

Magnus GULBRANDSEN, professor:
Research
institutes as hybrid organizations [docx] 62k and
Organisational
Tensions and Research Work [pdf] 162k

Nancy HARDING, professor:
Medical
diagnosis and the construction of dementia [docx] 45k

Mervi HASU, PhD:
In Search of
Sensitive Ethnography of Change [pdf] 2461k

Karl-Heinz LEITNER, Phd:
Innovation
Futures [pdf] 773k

Martin LINDELL, professor:
Developing
New Products - An action, interaction and contextual approach [pdf]
2441k

Linda McKIE, professor:
Marie
Curie project [pdf] 277k

M Paloma SANCHEZ, professor:
Shortcomings
in the measurement of innovation [pdf] 247k

Karl-Erik SVEIBY, Pernilla GRIPENBERG & Beata SEGERCRANTZ:

Unintended
and Undesirable Consequences of Innovation [pdf] 154k

Urmas VARBLANE, professor:
Assessing
innovative behaviour of firms [pdf] 194k and
Can
The National Innovation Systems of the New EU Member States Be Improved
[pdf] 199k