Responsible Innovation & Entrepreneurship Research Initiative

Responsible Innovation

New technologies, products (both goods and services), and companies that start with ethical missions such as “do no evil” or develop green products often lose this focus as they scale in the pursuit of efficiencies through automation, new markets, revenues, and profits.

Beyond the pressures of financial stakeholders, this is another facet of how automation and the networked nature of the world are allowing entrepreneurs to scale rapidly (often without due reflection, due care, and due diligence) to launch products in the market whose unintended consequences may not be visible during development. Responsible innovation “means taking care of the future through collective stewardship of science and innovation in the present” (Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten, 2013).

Responsible innovation processes typically tend to do well on four dimensions:

• in including impacted stakeholders in the development process. Views the ecological environment as an always-impacted stakeholder with special status that has traditionally been neglected (unlike other stakeholders, it is without agency or voice).
• in anticipating adverse effects of technology at the micro (customers/consumers), meso (users and non-users), and macro levels (socio-ecological)
• in being reflexive and having self-awareness of biases
• in being responsive to changes in societal needs

A key area of our focus is to help product developers, and entrepreneurs anticipate the intended and unintended consequences of new technology (e.g., gene editing, artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology) and how it can affect disadvantaged and often excluded groups. We hope that this work helps innovation professionals to build anticipatory safety measures into products.

Responsible Entrepreneurship

From an entrepreneurship standpoint, the initiative will explore how companies that positively affect the environment and society can scale without compromising the "do no evil" or similar core missions that got them started. Notably, the program will also explore the challenges mission/purpose-driven organizations face when commercializing responsible innovations and the business imperatives that come with the need to scale and remain profitable. We see three elements critical to this effort; ethics-engaged leadership, developing eco-socially sustainable business models, and setting up governance mechanisms (incentives, metrics, oversight, etc.). The work of this research group should help ethical and mission-oriented companies scale such that the ethical core endures and they are organized for responsibility rather than have "organized irresponsibility."

Explore Programmatic Components

Li, C., Wu, C. Dong, Y., Weisman, H., & Sun, L. (2023). A Psychological Contract Perspective on How and When Employees’ Promotive Voice Enhances Promotability. Human Resource Management Journal. Accepted.

Li, C., Dong, Y., Wu, C.-h., Brown, M., Sun, L.-y. (2021). Appreciation that inspires: The impact of leader trait gratitude on team innovation. Journal of Organizational Behavior. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.2577

Li, C., Liang, J., Farh, J.-L. (2020). Speak up when water is murky: An uncertainty-based model linking perceived organizational politics to employee voice. Journal of Management, 46(3), 443-469. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206318798025

Ho-Dac, N. N., Kumar, M., and Slotegraaf, R. J. (2020). Using product development information to spur the adoption of continuous improvement products. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(6), 1156-1173.

Nickel, K., Orth, U., and Kumar, M. (2020). Designing for the genders: The role of visual harmony. International Journal for Research in Marketing, 37(4), 697-713.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2020.02.006

Sinapuelas, I.C. and Ho, F.N. (2019), "Information exchange in social networks for health care", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 692-702. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-12-2017-2470

Akcura, M.T., Sinapuelas, I.C. and Wang, H.-M.D. (2019), "Effects of multitier private labels on marketing national brands", Journal of Product & Brand Management, 28(3), pp. 391-407. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-10-2017-1623

Duan, J., Li, C., Xu, Y., Wu, C.-h. (2017). Transformational leadership and employee voice behavior: A Pygmalion mechanism. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(5), 650-670.https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2157

Luchs, M., Kumar, M. (2017). When might consumers choose superior sustainability despite a trade-off with other valued product attributes? Journal of Business Ethics, 140(3), 567-584. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-015-2695-0

Dong, Y., Bartol, K., Zhang, Z., Li, C. (2017). Enhancing Employee Creativity via Individual Skill Development and Team Knowledge Sharing: Influences of Dual-focused Transformational Leadership. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(3), 439-458. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2134

Li, C., Wu, K., Johnson, D. E., Avey, J. (2017). Going Against the Grain Works: An Attributional Perspective of Perceived Ethical Leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 141(1), 87-102. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2698-x

Kumar, M., & Noble, C. H. (2016). Beyond form and function: Why do consumers value product design?. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), 613-620. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296315002283

Sinapuelas, I. C. S., Wang, H. M. D., & Bohlmann, J. D. (2015). The interplay of innovation, brand, and marketing mix variables in line extensions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(5), 558-573.

Kumar, M., Oakland University, J. T., University of Mississippi, D. V. (2015). Enhancing Relationships with Brands using Product Design. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(5), 716-730.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpim.12245/full

Stilgoe, J., Owen, R., & Macnaghten, P. (2013). Developing a framework for responsible innovation. Research Policy, 42(9), 1568-1580.