is nevertheless a perfect example of a social innovation that pushes capitalism further by placing it in the private sphere, and in the end, this social innovation does not question the place of the car but optimizes its use.
Similarly, there is also a very strong trend towards responsible innovation, apart from the fact that the concept of responsible innovation tends to create a divide between innovations that would be responsible and others that, by definition, would not be. We agree with Xavier Pavie [PAV 12] who deplored the fact that the question of responsibility is posed as an end in itself. Too often responsibility is seen as a starting point. However, this neglects the fact that innovation deemed responsible in its purpose can either have a catastrophic ecological footprint (a bio-sourced bag is biodegradable but the production is more polluting) or be carried out in deplorable working conditions. The industrialization of organic food is accompanied, for example, by questions about the fair remuneration of employees and the illegal status of some of them7. Finally, he stressed that responsible innovation by its very nature does not exist. Responsible innovations are so because they have become so after a process in which the ability to anticipate all risks has been at the forefront8.
In our opinion, the question is not to develop social, responsible or any other specific type of innovation, as this leads to restricting the spectrum of possible innovations from the outset. Rather, we dare to go a step further by thinking about the meaning of the innovations we are intending, which amounts to restoring the political issue of innovation and innovating with consciousness. In doing so, we must therefore go beyond the question of impacts, which is often asked but is, in our opinion, insufficient or even pointless if we do not invest in the primary question of meaning.
Let us make no mistake about what we are talking about. This book is not a plea against responsible or social innovations in favor of a triumphant system of capitalism but an invitation to question oneself and thus to conceive innovations differently. Thus, this book presents first an approach9 that allows us to innovate with consciousness and then a set of tools and methodologies from the social sciences and humanities that we have redesigned to achieve this objective10.
Specifically, the first chapter aims to introduce the positioning of our approach and its contributions. The following chapters will be dedicated to the presentation of different tools. The chapters are not organized chronologically, so that the reader can draw on them as he or she sees fit. It is therefore not a method to be followed step by step in a fixed order. Each of these chapters will be structured as follows. First, we will position the tool within the disciplines to understand its origins and functions. Then, we will present the challenges of the tool for innovation using examples and cases drawn from the history of innovations and technologies or from situations we have observed. Finally, we will describe the implementation of these tools.
In so doing, we have created a book intended for a varied audience: politicians, business leaders or heads of any other organizations, engineers or designers, consumers or citizens, provided that they are interested in innovation or engaged in an innovation process and want to ask themselves the right questions.
Notes
1 Introduction written by Marianne CHOUTEAU, Joëlle FOREST and Céline NGUYEN.
2 1 Penser le Sens de l’Innovation is a approach created by the authors, which literally means in English “thinking about the meaning of innovation”. The meaning is the direction and the signification of innovation.
3 2 https://www.senat.fr/rap/r03-267/r03-26717.html.
4 3 We have already indicated that the history of technology can demonstrate the vacuity of such a point of view [FOR 18].
5 4 https://blogs.mediapart.fr/dominique-herbert/blog/290116/linnovation-invention-du-capitalisme. It should be noted that in this forum, the author nevertheless accepts the idea that certain innovations are indisputable.
6 5 It should also be noted that the very definition of social innovation appears to be a pleonasm because innovation is social by nature: it is embedded in a social environment, that of the designers and that of the users.
7 6 https://up-conferences.fr/videos/frederic-mazzella-expose-innovations-sociales-portees-par-blablacar.
8 7 Read this interview: https://www.novethic.fr/actualite/social/consommation/isr-rse/bien-etre-animal-conditions-de-travail-produits-importes-les-5-cartons-rouges-adresses-au-bio-146007.html.
9 8 We have already pointed out the vacuity of such a point of view, which would be acceptable only if we were endowed with perfect and omniscient rationality [FOR 18].
10 9 This approach is the result of the SHS research that we have been conducting for years on the genesis of innovations, the stories and representations of technology within INSA Lyon and now the Saint-Gobain INSA Lyon “Ingenious Engineers” chair.
11 10 It encourages teams engaged in a process of innovation to combine multiple skills and thus to go beyond a disciplinary vision.
1 Thinking About the Meaning of Innovation
1.1. Introduction
The history of the concept of innovation is a fascinating one. It reveals that, contrary to popular belief, innovation has not always been viewed positively. Plato did not hesitate, in Book VII of Laws, to plead for tradition. Because innovation leads young people to despise what is old and to value what is new, it is, according to him, the worst of scourges for a polis, because it leads to instability. Ironically, “the same people who have challenged innovation for centuries – governments – are the same people who have de-challenged it, making innovation an instrument of economic policy” [GOD 14].
However, the massification of the production and consumption of innovations is nowadays questionable. What is the function of innovation in modern societies? What kinds of relationships does our modern society have with innovation? And more fundamentally, what innovations do we want for which societies?
In order to provide some answers to the above questions, this chapter invites us to think about the meaning of innovation. We will thus see that while the question of the meaning of innovation is an old question, over time it has been pushed into the background or even overshadowed by the question of the meaning of innovation for society. This observation will lead us to advocate for the reintegration of the meaning of innovation. The question then arises as to how to proceed. We will then present the Penser le Sens de l’Innovation (P.S.I.) approach (thinking about the meaning of innovation), which emphasizes that the question of meaning must be considered from the points of view of both direction and signification.
1.2. Why bring up the question of meaning?
In a society where the injunction to innovate is a permanent one, it is legitimate to ask why it seems necessary to think about the meaning of innovation. To better understand our position, let us go back in time.
1.2.1.
