Responsible innovation between virtue and governance: revisiting Arendt’s notion of work as action

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent developments in responsible innovation have focused on the governance of innovation processes. The dimension of virtue in innovation processes has thereby been largely overlooked, and more significantly the constitutive relation between virtue and governance that enables responsible innovation. To understand responsible innovation in terms of this relation, this paper turns to Hannah Arendt’s ontology of the Vita Activa. First, it problematises responsible innovation in Arendt’s work, but then points at a hitherto undiscussed possibility of responsible innovation as ‘work in the mode of action’. Second, it explores this possibility as it arises out of nine modes for human activity in Arendt’s work, arguing that it constitutes a hybrid activity between world and plurality, durability and fragility, and the firm and the public sphere. Third, it explains how the ‘web of stories’ links virtuous action and governance, which points at a novel understanding of the role of narrative for responsible innovation.