Linking Adaptive Governance, Strategic Flexibility and Responsible Innovation: Evidence from China

Abstract

The transformative and complex nature of technological development raises some ethical issues regarding innovation. Actually, many emerging technologies which developed rapidly are actually a double-edged sword. While innovation promotes development, it also affects the nature and society adversely. We discuss the relations among adaptive governance, strategic flexibility and responsible innovation. According to the path of “guide-strategy-behavior”, the influence relationship model of “adaptive governance-strategic flexibility-responsible innovation” is constructed. We took 425 top managers, middle managers and R & D staff as respondents, and finished empirical study by structural equation model (SEM) and fs QCA. We have the following findings: (i) adaptive governance has a positive effect on responsible innovation; (ii) proactive flexibility plays a part in the mediating role between adaptive governance and responsible innovation; (iii) reactive flexibility plays a part in the mediating role between adaptive governance and responsible innovation; (iv) the mediating effect of proactive flexibility is stronger than reactive flexibility. These findings extend the research and practice of adaptive governance and responsible innovation.