Virtual Special Issue on Responsible Innovation in Times of Crisis

Abstract

The social and economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on humanity is already devastating. The pandemic demands responsibility from companies to step up for the service of society. Companies must show their commitment not only to shareholders but also to all of their stakeholders, while also putting their resources and expertise at the service of governments and the entire society. Firm responsible innovation is a positive impactful alternative to combat Covid-19. This Virtual Special Issue presents a collection of recent articles on responsible innovation —innovation oriented towards avoiding harm, doing good and developing responsible governance that involves establishing institutions, structures, and procedures to facilitate innovation (Voegtlin and Scherer, 2017)— connected to situations of crisis. We hope that these research works can help understand the business responsibilities in the current 2020 global Covid-19 pandemic even though this crisis is unprecedented and is demanding of much faster action to save lives. Briefly summarizing this set of articles covers the role of business in tackling grand societal challenges through innovation (Candi et al., 2019) and civic engagement (Skarmeas et al., 2019), the role of post-disaster business communities (Dinger et al., 2019), and innovation in multi-stakeholder settings (Rühli et al., 2017). This Virtual Special Issue also wants to serve as an action call to business ethics researchers to study how such global crisis is affecting the way businesses reorient their responsibilities, embark in cross-sector collaborations, and develop rapid responsible innovation to fight Covid-19.