Innovation Systems for Transformations towards Sustainability? Taking the Normative Dimension Seriously

By Michael P. Schlaile, Sophie Urmetzer, Vincent Blok, A. Andersen, Job Timmermans, Matthias Mueller, J. Fagerberg, Andreas Pyka. 2017

188 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The aim of this article is to complement research on transformations towards sustainability by drawing upon the innovation systems (IS) framework. The IS framework already serves as a suitable and influential basis for research on processes of technological innovation and economic change. We argue that improving the capacity of an IS framework for dealing with wicked problems and the normative complexity of sustainability requires a fundamental paradigm shift because in the current IS paradigm innovations are considered as per se desirable and in mostly technological terms. Therefore, we call for IS dedicated to transformations towards sustainability by opening up for systemic innovations beyond the technological dimension and by acknowledging that stakeholders have conflicting visions, interests, norms, and expectations with regard to sustainability goals. Taking the normative dimension of transformations towards sustainability seriously thus requires more explicit and integrative research on directionality, legitimacy, responsibility, and their interrelation in IS. The article concludes by proposing suggestions for future research based on IS-related approaches that can serve as building blocks for an IS framework capable of incorporating legitimate goal-orientation for transformative innovation by and for society.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Management of Technology and Innovation, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/25b84778ba449bb9ac83c44a127df4ba9d59d7d5

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In Global and Planetary Change

In Management of Technology and Innovation

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Citations in the corpus

Regional innovation policies for new path development – beyond neo-liberal and traditional systemic views (2018, background): “Issues related to the societal desirability of innovation, the directionality of change and the goal-orientation of innovation systems deserve due attention (Schlaile et al., 2017).”
Dealing with the game-changing technologies of Agriculture 4.0: How do we manage diversity and responsibility in food system transition pathways? (2020, unknown): “It has been argued that innovation systems are not neutral, and they can support transition pathways including only certain technologies and food system futures, while excluding others (Schlaile et al., 2017; Pigford et al., 2018).”
New directions for RIS studies and policies in the face of grand societal challenges (2021, background): “Like the mission-oriented approach, the literature on responsible research and 1 The literature on RRI has so far not been strongly related to the innovation system literature and vice versa (Schlaile et al, 2017).”
Guides or gatekeepers? Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era (2020, background): “standards (typically “niche actors”) and those supporting the status quo (typically “regime actors”), where issues of directionality, legitimacy and responsibility become even more central [69].”
Exploring the normative turn in regional innovation policy: responsibility and the quest for public value (2019, unknown): “Resonating with critiques of innovation policy based on directionality, legitimacy and responsibility failures (e.g. Schlaile et al., 2017; Weber & Rohracher, 2012), von Schomberg positions the contribution of the RRI approach as ensuring a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors…”
Perceptions of the Fourth Agricultural Revolution: What’s In, What’s Out, and What Consequences are Anticipated? (2020, background): “…into a predicted fourth agricultural revolution, scholars have argued that we need to be clear about what future innovation trajectories look like, including which technologies are prioritised over others (Levidow et al. 2012; Schlaile et al. 2017; Klerkx and Begemann 2020; Klerkx and Rose 2020).”