Department of Social Sciences

Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) offers a methodology to make social and moral values central to the design and development of new technologies. Although VSD incorporates views from philosophy and stakeholders involved in the process, it notably lacks reflexivity on the position of those involved in conducting the methodology itself e.g. ethicists, researchers and/or designers. Where technology is considered value-laden, the neutrality of those involved in the methodology seems to be taken for granted. The problem of a lack of reflexivity among VSD practitioners means stakeholder values may have less influence on technological design than is methodologically intended.
Understanding VSD as an extension of applied ethical assessment offers a fruitful outlook on how to tackle this problem. As in any sort of ethical assessment, reflexivity and transparency are key to allow all stakeholders to participate, and to ensure outcomes are not decided through power relations alone. This will promote reflexivity and forward a culturally-sensitive approach to VSD that may simplify the process across different cultures.
If the designs produced by VSD are seen as products of ethical debates, the lack of reflexivity in VSD undermines the credibility of the designs, understood in terms of how far the designs reflect the values of stakeholders encountered and not merely those of the designers. Without reflexivity the reasons supporting prioritisation and analysis of stakeholder values lose credibility, undermining the designs and technologies produced through VSD. As it stands, it is difficult to defend VSD and its designs as products of a coherent design methodology which identifies clear reasons for preferring certain values over others.  To begin to correct this deficiency, the cultural-specificity of dominant ‘value frameworks’ in VSD should be reflexively assessed against the outputs of the SATORI FP7 project by practitioners reporting on VSD.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how relationships between different actors are being shaped, in order to allow industry to come to acceptable and desirable uses of Research and Innovation (R&I) that address societal challenges.

Design/methodology/approach – Building on existing notions of responsibility proposed in the literature, the paper develops a theoretical account of “networks of responsibility” which capture the interlinked nature of responsibility relationships. The usefulness of the approach is evaluated by exploring two cases of R&I in industry deploying a qualitative research approach that involves interviewing and document analysis. For this, a multinational company from Germany was involved, as well as a small and medium-sized company from Denmark. 

Findings – The study surfaced 68 responsibility relationships involving a range of different objects, subjects, authorities, and norms. By describing overlaps in objects, subjects, and other aspects across relationships, the theoretical model proved adequate in untangling and displaying interrelatedness of responsibilities. Furthermore, the analysis surfaced characteristics of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) that are already in place in the R&I processes of two innovative companies, such as anticipation, foresight, and stakeholder engagement. Not all aspects of responsibility outlined in the theoretical model could be extracted from the interview data for every responsibility relationship, pointing to the need for further research.

Originality/value – The paper offers a novel theoretical approach to understanding and analysing responsibility allocations in R&I in industry. It demonstrates the reliability of this theoretical position empirically. It is practically important because it supports policy development on an organisational as well as societal level.

The question whether institutions in Africa were shaped by the metropolitan identity of the colonizer or by local conditions is lively debated in the African economic history literature. In
this paper we contribute to this debate by revealing regional differences in tax capacity in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. Samir Amin (1972) divided the African continent into three different “macro-regions of colonial influence”: Africa of the colonial trade or peasant economy, Africa of the concession-owning companies and Africa of the labour reserves.
Interestingly, we argue that Mozambique encompassed all three different “macro-regions” in one sole colony. In regression analysis we find differences in “tax capacity” along this threefold
categorization. We use a newly compiled dataset that includes government revenue (direct/indirect taxes) raised on a district level between 1930 and the 1973, derived from the statistical yearbooks and national accounts of Mozambique. Focusing on one country has the advantage over cross country comparisons that one can keep the metropolitan identity constant. We conclude that the tax system developed as a response to the local conditions and the differences between the three regions were exacerbated during colonial times.