Why should we care about the dark side of social innovation?
Join us for this talk as part of the IIPP Seminar Series, as Martin Fougère of the Hanken School of Economics discusses his research on why we should care about the dark side of social innovation.

Social innovation (SI) is typically defined as new ideas that are more effective than existing alternatives in addressing social problems. As such, we cannot be against SI since any SI is by definition better than alternatives – but that is precisely why we can be blind to the possible dark side(s) of SI. Namely, in accepting that SI is always good for society, we run the risk of not being able to think critically about both the assumptions behind SIs and their possible adverse consequences.
In line with the two articles linked below, I set out to discuss three dark sides of social innovation. By doing so, I hope to inspire a discussion about whether policy makers and other innovation actors should be made more aware of the potential adverse effects of innovation.
- Discussant: Ville Takala (IIPP)
- Chair: Rainer Kattel (IIPP)
Background material for this seminar
[[{"fid":"10909","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"martin-fougere-150px.png","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"martin-fougere-150px.png","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"150","width":"150","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Martin Fougère's main research interests relate to problematizing the power effects of business and policy discourses on society. This includes international business (particularly cross-cultural management), marketing (particularly service management), innovation (particularly social innovation), and sustainable development (particularly corporate social responsibility). In his studies to date, he has drawn on various critical theoretical and analytical approaches, such as deconstruction, Foucault-inspired discourse analysis, neo-Gramscian perspectives on political economy, postcolonialism, and the post-foundational discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe. His work has been published in international journals such as Business & Society, International Journal of Management Reviews, Journal of Business Ethics and Management Learning. He is currently an associate editor at the academic journal Organization.