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Questioning the Normative Core of RI: The Challenges Posed to Stakeholder Engagement in a Corporate Setting

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Responsible Innovation 3

Abstract

Responsible Innovation (RI) is a normative conception of technology development, which hopes to improve upon prevailing practices. One of its key principles is the active involvement of a broad range of stakeholders in deliberations in order to better embed innovations in society. In this paper, we examine the applicability of this principle in corporate settings and in smaller scale technological projects. We do so in the context of a case study focused on an innovation project of a start-up organisation with social aspirations. We describe our failed attempts to introduce RI-inspired stakeholder engagement approaches and articulate the ‘reasonable reasons’ why the organisation rejected these approaches. We then examine the methods that the organisation adopted to be responsive to various stakeholders’ needs and values. Based on our analysis, we argue that there is a need for the field of RI to explore additional and alternative ways to address issues of stakeholder commitment and inclusion, in order to make RI’s deliberative ideals more applicable to the rapid, fluid, partial, and provisional style of deliberation and decision making that we found in corporate contexts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stakeholder involvement has by now been embedded in the Horizon 2020 program, and is formalised as one of the RI requirements in a number of recent EU policy documents (for instance recently in Strand et al. 2015 and Kuhlman et al. 2016).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Merel Noorman

  2. Department of Philosophy, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Tsjalling Swierstra

  3. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Dorien Zandbergen

Authors
  1. Merel Noorman
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  2. Tsjalling Swierstra
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  3. Dorien Zandbergen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Merel Noorman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology & Society, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Lotte Asveld

  2. Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Rietje van Dam-Mieras

  3. Department of Philosophy, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Tsjalling Swierstra

  4. Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Saskia Lavrijssen

  5. Technology Foundation STW, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Kees Linse

  6. Delft, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Jeroen van den Hoven

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Noorman, M., Swierstra, T., Zandbergen, D. (2017). Questioning the Normative Core of RI: The Challenges Posed to Stakeholder Engagement in a Corporate Setting. In: Asveld, L., van Dam-Mieras, R., Swierstra, T., Lavrijssen, S., Linse, K., van den Hoven, J. (eds) Responsible Innovation 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64834-7_13

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