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

Abstract

A recent biographer has described the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas 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 Levinas. We argue that the work makes a practical and philosophical contribution to the emerging debate on ethics by the IS community. Furthermore, we suggest that our analysis has implications for DOI research increasingly being carried out in an open-innovation paradigm.