Responsible Social Innovation and the Public Good

As outlined by James Phills, Kriss Deiglmeier, and Dale Miller (2008), what makes social innovations “social” is the notion that the value created by these collaborations accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.

The concept of the public interest is also of central importance in the related fields of “responsible research and innovation” and “public interest technology.”

According to its proponents, responsible research and innovation requires deep and sustained collaboration across sectors, disciplines, and worldviews to produce research and innovations that serve the public good (Delgado & Åm, 2018).

The notion of the public good also features prominently in the field of public interest technology, which seeks to ensure technology is designed, deployed, and regulated in a way that improves the lives of people, centering on values of equity, inclusion, and social justice (Abbas, Pitt, & Michael, 2021; Ford Foundation, 2018).

However, what does the “public good” or “public interest” really mean? What perspectives on the public good do we need to bear in mind whenever we seek to conduct research and create technology and innovations in the name and service of the public interest?

The concept of the public good

For people not conversant with philosophy, the meaning of the “public good,” which is also referred to as the “common good,” is self-evident; it refers to what the members of a community have in common or, alternatively, to those “goods” that serve the interests of all members of a community.

However, these simple formulations obscure more than they reveal. It is possible to discern at least five major approaches to thinking about the public good.

Unitary approaches view the common good as synonymous with a higher purpose, such as God. In this view, the common good is objective, like a law of nature, and provides a natural or God-given goal for society. On this account, there is no fundamental opposition between the common and individual good (Held, 1970).

The 17^th century onwards witnessed the emergence of individualistic conceptions of the common good, as seen in aggregative approaches that conceptualize the common good as the sum of private goods, not a collective social goal, such as an ideal political community (Etzioni, 2015; Mansbridge, 2013).

By contrast, communitarian approaches, which involve collectivist conceptions of the common good, contend that the common good is more than the mere sum of individual goods. In this view, the common good is valuable in and of itself, even if one does not receive any personal benefit (Etzioni, 2015).

Consistent with the modern turn towards material well-being, civic approaches view the common good as those goods that all share qua members of the public (Mansbridge, 2013). Notably, this approach does not convey a sense of commonality among a group of individuals (Deneulin & Townsend, 2007).

Finally, procedural approaches view the common good as the outcome of particular processes, procedures, and practices enacted under ideal conditions, such as deliberative democracy (Mansbridge, 2013).

This potted summary, however brief, reveals that any given perspective on the public or common good is, at best, a partial representation of this complex, contested, and paradoxical concept.

Paradoxes of the public good

According to management scholars Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis (2011), paradoxes can be categorized into four basic types: paradoxes of performing, organizing, learning, and belonging.

Performing paradoxes emerge in the context of diverse stakeholders and result in competing goals (e.g., financial vs. social goals, freedom vs. order). Organizing paradoxes arise as complex systems create competing processes to achieve desired goals and outcomes (e.g., collaboration vs. competition, control vs. flexibility). Learning paradoxes surface as dynamic systems adapt, renew, and innovate, raising questions about whether to build upon or destroy the past to create the future (e.g., tradition vs. innovation, incremental vs. radical innovation). Finally, belonging paradoxes arise in the context of complexity and pluralism as individuals and groups seek belonging and distinctiveness (e.g., individual vs. collective, us vs. them).

We can also imagine a host of interlocking tensions between these four paradoxes of the common good, as reflected in differences between worldviews (Iceland, Silver & Redstone, 2023), ways of life (Verweij et al., 2006), and elementary social forms (Fiske, 1992).

All of this matters deeply for how we make sense of the public interest and what values, goals, processes, and identities we center and sideline in our pursuit of responsible social innovation.

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The social order and social justice framework

At this point, I want to constrain the focus to highlight a core tension that is implied in prevailing approaches to responsible research and innovation, especially social innovation and public interest technology. The tension I have in mind here is the tension between social justice and social order worldviews.

Recently proposed by John Iceland, Eric Silver, and Ilana Redstone (2023), these worldviews have markedly different understandings of human nature, morality, social change, and the wisdom of the past.

For instance, the social justice worldview tends to understand fairness in terms of outcomes (e.g., equality of outcome), whereas the social order worldview tends to understand it in terms of process (e.g., equality of opportunity).

There are several other important differences. For example, social order emphasizes group loyalty and respect for authority, whereas social justice emphasizes care for the vulnerable. Moreover, when it comes to social change, social order advocates slow, incremental change, whereas social justice prefers fast, extensive change (Iceland et al., 2023).

Here’s the point of all this. Both the social order and social justice worldviews are partial and incomplete and exist in uncomfortable tension with each other, yet each perspective nevertheless contains wisdom that is lacking in the other. And, as uncomfortable as it may be to acknowledge this, each perspective needs the other.

The dominance of the social justice perspective in the social sciences in general (Abrams, 2016) and in the social innovation, responsible research and innovation, and public interest technology fields in particular thus raises important questions about how, in what way, and for whom the public interest is served.

Social innovation and the search for the public good

If there is no single, determinate public good, then what we are left with is the search for the public good (Sluga, 2014). And if clashing perspectives are an inevitable characteristic of the public good, then the search for the public good always occurs in the context of uncertainty, complexity, and contestation.

Here are three principles that might guide the search for the public good in pluralistic contexts.

Principle 1: Be open to heterodox views on the public good

In pluralistic societies, there are reasonable differences of opinion about what is the right, just, or fair thing to do. It is, therefore, imperative to be tolerant of plural, even heterodox, perspectives as part of the search for common ground and a shared sense of the public good.

Principle 2: Cultivate both/and thinking

Living with paradox requires us to do something that, in descriptive terms, is quite simple: namely, accept that there is no black and white, no right and wrong, and that two logically incompatible positions might well be true (Bolden, Witzel, & Linacre, 2016). However, practically speaking, living and working with paradox is difficult and calls on us to eschew either/or thinking and instead foster both/and thinking.

Principle 3: Embrace “clumsy” solutions

Shared power contexts call on all of us to hold our worldviews and preferred solutions more lightly than we may prefer. To address complex challenges in complex contexts, it is therefore vital to eschew “elegant” solutions—those that reflect the perspectives of single worldviews—and instead embrace “clumsy” solutions—those that experimentally combine different perspectives (Verweij et al., 2006).

Note. A version of this article was recently presented at the 15^th International Social Innovation Research Conference in Guimaraes, Portugal.