Avoiding Harm in Technology Innovation

To capitalize on emerging technologies while mitigating unanticipated consequences, innovation managers need to establish a systematic review process.

September 04, 2024

Reading Time: 20 min

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The Research

The authors interviewed five ethics and compliance executives about their companies’ ethical practices when commercializing emerging technologies. In a second round of interviews, 16 managers with roles in technology scouting, corporate venture capital investment, marketing, product development, product management, and general management shared their experiences with innovation at multiple companies.
From these conversations, the authors developed 25 detailed cases representing organizations of different sizes and maturities in Europe, the United States, and Australia.
The interview results were used to create a list of statements about innovation practices that were then vetted by the interviewees for relevance and usefulness. The authors narrowed the statements to 12 to create the Responsible Innovation and Commercialization framework.

Advances in science and technology promise to solve some of the world’s most vexing problems, create new markets, and fuel economic growth. At the same time, they often raise ethical questions, and their deployment may lead to unanticipated adverse consequences that many companies are ill-equipped to identify or address.

For example, technology that enables the editing of human DNA is leading to new medical treatments, but the practice is also rife with unintended consequences. In 2018, an ambitious researcher in China ignored both the norms of the field and the law and altered human embryos’ genetic material in an effort to confer resistance to HIV. The changes he made to the embryos’ genes may be passed down to future generations, and their effects on human development are unknown.1

Failure to fully consider possible outcomes when deciding whether and how to develop any technology can lead to negative consequences for companies, customers, and other stakeholders. In a 2024 case involving an AI chatbot, Air Canada’s enthusiasm for automated customer service ran ahead of its understanding of the significant limitations of generative AI when it comes to accuracy of output. It fielded a chatbot that misrepresented company policy on bereavement rates in response to a customer inquiry and then denied the customer reimbursement because they did not follow the policy, refusing to take responsibility for providing bad information. When the customer sued and won, the headlines did little to burnish Air Canada’s reputation for customer service.

When considering new developments that are truly at the forefront of applied science and technology, innovators are usually well ahead of regulations that might provide guardrails around commercialization decisions.

About the Authors

Tania Bucic is a professor of marketing at UNSW Sydney. Gina Colarelli O’Connor (@oconngina) is a professor of innovation management at Babson College.

References

1. P. Rana, “How a Chinese Scientist Broke the Rules to Create the First Gene-Edited Babies,” The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2019, www.wsj.com.

2. E. Pain, “To Be a Responsible Researcher, Reach Out and Listen,” Science, Jan. 17, 2017, www.science.org; and I. Nakamitsu, “Responsible Innovation for a New Era in Science and Technology,” UN Chronicle 55, nos. 3 and 4 (December 2018).

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