Seeking the face of innovation with the ethical compass of Emmanuel Lévinas

Gabriel J. Costello

Brian Donnellan

pp. 97-117

in: Ana M Bernardos, Karlheinz Kautz (eds), Open it-based innovation: moving towards Cooperative it transfer and knowledge diffusion, Berlin, Springer, 2008

Abstract

A recent biographer has described the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas as being permeated by one simple but profound theme: Western philosophy has at best ignored and at worst suppressed the "Other." The approach of this study involved a concept-centric examination of innovation terminology assembled from key papers in the area. The analysis presents evidence of the lack of regard in the literature for the human dimension, with the notable exception of the work of Andrew Van de Ven and his collaborators. Consequently, an ethical definition of innovation is proposed inspired by the theoretical lens of Lévinas. We argue that the work makes a practical and philosophical contribution to the emerging debate on ethics by the Information Systems community. Furthermore, we suggest that our analysis has implications for diffusion of innovations research increasingly being carried out in an open-innovation paradigm.

Cited authors

Levinas Emmanuel