A model of social responsibility for start-ups: developing a cross-fertilisation of responsible innovation, the lean start-up approach, and the quadruple helix approach

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we cross-fertilise responsible innovation (RI), the Lean Start-up approach (LSA) and the Quadruple Helix approach (QH) within one model: the social responsibility for start-ups model (SRSM). SRSM aims to instil responsibility into the start-up innovation process by ensuring that the voices of stakeholders from all four helices are taken into account, whilst providing an assessment of current impacts in these areas compared with the ambition of start-ups. This helps to identify room for improvement in order to provide an iterative, lean approach for start-ups to inform the strategy of the start-up cycle, which incorporates the four helices of the QH, and the four process requirements found in RI theory (anticipation, reflexivity, inclusiveness, and responsiveness). This model works as a way to operationalize responsibility in start-ups. This paper fills a gap where there is a lack of suitable approaches for start-ups to follow and implement.

KEYWORDS:

• Start-up
• quadruple helix
• responsible research and innovation
• socially-responsible investment
• high-tech

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Responsible and ethical practices will be defined in more detail in the RI section of this paper. But, in essence, we mean what is intuitively understood by these ideals as responsibility that is forwards and backwards-looking, and is both passive and active. Ethical practices, we refer to as what is considered to be in the interests of the common good, what is right, what leads to good social outcomes.

2 The content of this article is one of the results of the (*Anonymous project name*) project. The theoretical reflection that led to the definition of the model described in this paper was carried out in the context of this European project, funded under the Horizon 2020 programme.

3 For the purpose of this paper, we will often refer to our target group as start-ups, for ease of reference. Our focus is on STEM start-ups, which are typically high-tech, because of the very nature of STEM. While we do not dispute the fact that there may be low-tech STEM start-ups, we wish to predominantly focus on high-tech ones. Also, it is typically understood that technological change is a major requirement of long-term economic growth and innovation (Rosenberg 1996). This does not state that either low-tech or non-STEM start-ups do or do not practice social responsibility, but simply for the purpose of this paper we want to concentrate on high-tech STEM start-ups. The reason for this focus is because of the (generally) higher environmental and societal impact these start-ups are anticipated will have on society. Again, this is not to claim that other kinds of start-ups (non-STEM or non-high-tech STEM) may have as large or larger impact. Finally, the paper is focused on all kinds of high-tech STEM start-ups, those already implementing socially-responsible practices and those that are not.

4 Quite naturally, one would argue, given that organizations are embedded in complex nexuses of shareholders, managers, customers, suppliers, and local populations (McWilliams and Siegel 2001; Retolaza, Ruiz, and San-Jose 2009; Voinea et al. 2019)

5 These differ from the six keys of the EU’s RRI model (Ethics, Science Education, Gender Equality, Open Access, Governance and Public Engagement) because they respond to ‘‘how’ to do RRI, whereas the six keys focus on the ‘what’, i.e. the RRI content’ (ORBIT RI 2022).

6 See for instance the following EU funded projects: COMPASS, GREAT, ORBIT RRI, Responsible Industry, PRISMA, MULTI-ACT, and ROSIE.

7 See on this specific issue the following grey literature documents: D3.3 Lessons from the pilots (2019) PRISMA project; D3.3 Models of RI in industry (2017) Responsible Industry project; D5.7 Peer-reviewed paper on implementation of RI in SMEs (2018) Innovation Compass project.

8 See D3.3 Lessons from the pilots, cit.

9 See D3.3 Lessons from the pilots, cit.

10 Mansoori and Lackeus (2020) compare six entrepreneurial methods, but what they say about the advantages of integrating diverse approaches remains valid also if the focus is restricted to LSA and Effectuation. Furthermore, from their analysis emerges that these two methods are the most aligned and complete according to the dimensions they used for their comparison. In any case, it cannot be expected that one method alone covers all the aspects of the ‘competing’ ones while adding the new insights the competitors lack.

11 The importance of entrepreneurial groups and their dynamics also emerged in the debate regarding the evaluation of start-ups by potential investors. This has led to the ‘jockey vs horse’ framework’ debate (Gompers et al. 2020; Blair and Shaver 2020), which questions whether investors should bet on the business (‘the horse’) or the management team (‘the jockey’) (Stromberg et al. 2009). These dynamics are particularly relevant, especially in the early stages of the start-up experience, where both the business and management team of the start-up are constantly evolving and developing (Visintin and Pittino 2014 and Blair and Shaver 2020).

12 There are numerous questions that deserve to be pursued further regarding the relation between QH and RRI and LSA. We refrain from making any claim that this paper offers an answer (or a comprehensive review) of all those questions. For example, the interaction among the four helixes could itself constitute the topic of an extensive analysis, both from the more practical and from the more theoretical approaches. What the QH brings is, as mentioned in the introduction, a framework for understanding the challenges of starting with four core groups (effectively: four core values) that do not have any principled priority over each other. This is both the common element of the QH literature and the insight that we employ in the cross-fertilization. Of course, this brings with it a plethora of questions regarding implementation in local contexts and concrete practices. However, here we do not want to open all doors at the same time. For now, the research question forces us to strip the QH approach down to its fundamentals.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Horizon 2020 Framework Programme [grant number 101005937].

Notes on contributors

Mark Ryan

Mark Ryan is a Digital Ethics Researcher at Wageningen Economic Research, focusing on areas of robotics, AI, and digital developments and responsible innovation. He has published on a wide range of digital ethics topics, such as: smart cities, self-driving vehicles, agricultural data analytics, social robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Eugen Octav Popa

Eugen Octav Popa is an argumentation scholar who works in the field of STS (science and technology studies) and RRI (responsible research and innovation). He obtained his PhD in 2016 with a thesis on argumentative interactions in science and published papers on the reasonableness of argumentative interactions, discussion structures for reconstructing scientific debates, friction between stakeholders in innovation projects, technological conflict. He has been involved as a postdoctoral researcher in several Horizon 2020 such as RRI Tools, RiConfigure, and RRIstart. He has also worked with the Dutch Health Council in studying the interaction between scientists and policy makers in cases of public controversy. He currently works as postdoctoral researcher on a project on responsible innovation paths for ultrathin nanomembranes within the Science, Technology and Policy Studies (STEPS) at University of Twente. His work has been published in Informal Logic, Science and Public Policy, Public Understanding of Science, Philosophy and Technology, Life Sciences Society and Policy, and Journal of Pragmatics. He is the winner of the 2016 J. A. Blair prize for the study of argumentation and 2020 prize for the best academic paper (main author together with Vincent Blok and Renate Wesselink) at the ETHAC Conference of the European Triple Helix Association.

Vincent Blok

Vincent Blok MBA is Associate Professor in philosophy of technology and responsible innovation at the Philosophy Chair Group, Wageningen University. From 2002 to 2006, Blok held various management functions in the health care sector. In 2006, he became director of the Louis Bolk Institute, an international research institute in the field of organic and sustainable agriculture, nutrition and health care. In 2005 he received his PhD degree in philosophy at Leiden University with a specialization in philosophy of technology.

Andrea Declich

Andrea Declich is a socio-economist who has worked as a social researcher with several research and training institutes in programs and projects funded by public and private Italian bodies, international institutions including the European Commission, development banks such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development bank, as well as UN agencies such as FAO, IFAD, UN-Habitat, WHO and OMM.

Maresa Berliri

Maresa Berliri, for over 20 years, she worked in scientific communication, including: the technical and operational organization of several scientific and cultural events (international conferences, seminars, etc.), mostly related to the implementation of European and international projects in both Italy and abroad; the management of Internet sites; technical-scientific secretariat of networks of researchers. To carry out these activities, she has collaborated with various private research institutes in the framework of projects financed by entities such as: European Commission (FP6, FP7, Horizon 2020), WHO, IFAD, UN-Habitat, IOM and several Italian public administrations (such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labor and Social Policies, Lazio Regional Government, Puglia Regional Government, Invalsi) and other public and private bodies, national and international.

Alfonso Alfonsi

Alfonso Alfonsi has participated both in the Istituto di Studi Avanzati di Rocca di Papa and in the Scuola di Sociologia e di Scienze Umane, where he lectured on sociology of religion, history of Italian sociology, leadership theory. In the frame work of the multidisciplinary orientation of the Scuola has also worked on the relationship between social and nature sciences (palaeontology, ethology, biosemiotics). Previous to the establishment of the Scuola, he participated in the organisation of seminars on the epistemology of social sciences and the use of non-standard logics. For about 10 years he was the head of Stesam (Istituto di scienze e tecnologie per lo sviluppo Aldo Moro), a training Institute for post graduate students based in Bari.

Simeon Veloudis

Simeon Veloudis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at CITY College and a Senior Researcher at the South-East European Research Centre (SEERC). He holds a PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Reading. Simos’ research interests lie in the realms of Cloud Computing, Semantic Modelling, Knowledge Representation, Security, and Formal Methods. Over the last decade, his research has attracted significant EC funding through successful participation in FP7 and H2020 projects. He has served as a programme committee member in several international conferences, and as a referee for numerous journals in the areas of Semantic Modelling, Knowledge Representation, Cloud Computing, Security, and Governance and Quality Control.