Why Do Firms Implement Responsible Innovation? The Case of Emerging Technologies in South Korea
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Why Do Firms Implement Responsible Innovation? The Case of Emerging Technologies in South Korea Eunok Ko1,2 · Yeonbae Kim2,3 Received: 2 February 2020 / Accepted: 9 May 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract With the rise of responsible innovation (RI) initiatives in firms that commercialize innovation in recent years, experts have argued that in order for RI to succeed, practical issues must be considered. Accordingly, this paper explores RI from the perspective of Korean emerging technology development firms. Although social benefits are expected from RI, which aims to reduce the side effects of innovations for society, the implementation of RI requires changing firms’ existing rules and routines. Therefore, predicting benefits and costs from the firm’s perspective can shed light on the likelihood that RI will succeed. In this study, through an expert survey, the relative weights of RI-related benefit criteria (technological level, economic performance, and public contribution) and cost criteria (anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness) were analyzed. On this basis, trends in priorities for RI levels were evaluated from present and future perspectives. Unexpectedly, firms recognized that even if constraints such as RI impose greater costs, they will eventually bring greater benefits. This finding indicates that innovation induced by RI overcomes obstacles, offsets costs, and then finally increases firms’ competitiveness, and that firms are willing to do good for society through RI. In the long term, a firm’s ethical activities may eventually result in improved performance by its management. Therefore, it can be concluded that, even if RI is enforced in a compulsory manner, it is highly likely that it can be well established and promoted even in firms that consider profit first. Keywords Responsible innovation · Analytical hierarchy process · Emerging technology · Regulation · Ethics · Corporate social responsibility * Eunok Ko [email protected] 1
Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT), Cheomdan‑Ro 8‑Gil, Dong‑Gu, Daegu 701‑300, Republic of Korea
2
Technology Management, Economics and Policy Program (TEMEP), College of Engineering, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak‑ro, Gwanak‑gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
3
Graduate School of Engineering Practice, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak‑ro, Gwanak‑gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
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E. Ko, Y. Kim
Introduction In modern society, a problem of the existing system of technological innovation is a failure to consider the social impact of innovations due to its limited focus on technological development and economic performance (Lowman et al. 2012; Stilgoe et al. 2013; Von Schomberg 2013). As the risks posed by the results of emerging technologies have become particular concerns in recent years, the European Union has proposed responsible innovation (RI)1 in the context of these research and innovation policies (Burget et al. 2017; Von Schomberg 2013). Recent RI research has focused on
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