Research Profiling for Responsible and Sustainable Innovations

Abstract

The issues of responsible and sustainable innovations have been attracting the growing attention of the ranks of scholars in recent years. However, this amassing productivity in the field has not been mapped and profiled thoroughly, yet. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to map the research output related to the concepts of responsible and sustainable innovations with the method of research profiling. The analysis consists of three components: general research profiling, subject area profiling and topic profiling conducted with the use of Scopus database. The research process is directed at answering three research questions: (1) who are the main contributors within the scholarly community? why? so what? (2) how is the research output distributed among subject areas? why? so what? (3) what are the central topics and issues discussed within the research field? why? so what? First of all, key contributing countries, research institutions, journals, and authors are identified in order to characterize the scholarly community working in the field. Secondly, research output is profiled through the prism of respective subject areas. This type of profiling aims at discovering varieties among key journals, authors and core references distributed across various subject areas. Thirdly, topic analysis is conducted in order to point out most crucial aspects studied in the body of literature in the field. The research sample consists of 1,083 publications indexed in Scopus database, including the phrases ‘responsible innovation’ or ‘sustainable innovation’ within their titles, keywords, and abstracts (topic search). The findings from the general research profiling confirm the growing interest of academia in exploring and investigating the issues of responsible and sustainable innovations. The leading contributors in the field are scholars and research institutions from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Dutch universities and research centers occupy three top three positions in regard to the number of publications. Among them, Delft University of Technology is the unquestionable leader. Journal of Cleaner Production and Journal of Responsible Innovation are found to be the most prolific and highly recognized source titles in the field. Subject area profiling shows a relatively high level of interrelatedness among the four leading subject areas i.e., Business, Management and Accounting, Engineering, Social Sciences, and Environmental Science in regard to authors, source titles and core references. Topic profiling indicates two leading thematic streams in the research field focused on the features and core aspects of responsible and sustainable innovations, and the relationships of the concept with people (human, humans), research, ethics, and technology. Discussion of research findings is focused around comparing and contrasting three overlapping concepts (i.e., responsible research and innovation, responsible innovation, and sustainable innovation), providing the critical assessment of the reasons for the scholarly research to have developed along with certain patterns and identifying unexplored aspects or possible future avenues of research.