Toward institutionalization of responsible innovation in the contemporary research university: insights from case studies of Arizona State University

Abstract

A comprehensive organizational reconceptualization undertaken by Arizona State University (ASU) during the past two decades has been motivated in part by an explicit intent to institutionalize reflexive understandings of societal responsibility within a major public research university. In the process of operationalizing new models for the American research university, ASU embarked on an academic reorganization that institutionalized the conditions for responsible innovation. Indeed, this institutionalization proceeded contemporaneously with—and in some cases preceded—the systematic articulation of responsible innovation discourses by an international community of scholars. As a transformed and transformational institution, the case of ASU points to the need for research universities to rethink societal responsibility.

Keywords

• Research universities
• knowledge production
• organizational institutionalization
• responsible innovation
• societal responsibility
• reflexivity