Value Chain Responsibility in Emerging Technologies

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and value chain responsibility (VCR) have gained increasing importance for firms. The literature on these topics reports on CSR practices for established firms with existing technologies and stable value chains. This raises questions about the viability of CSR and VCR in the case of new technologies, where products, markets and even firms do not yet exist. In three case studies we investigate how responsibility in the firm and the value chain is handled when dealing with a new technology, namely nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a new technological field with many promising applications. The case study findings confirm that the expansion of the current CSR and VCR literature is sensible, since uncertainty and speculation about the development of the value chain changes the perspective on responsibility. On the other side of the spectrum, studies of ethical, legal and social aspects (ELSA) of (nano)technologies on the responsible embedding of nanotechnology could benefit from the approaches of CSR initiatives, to ensure that the knowledge gained here can also be applied when companies are actually developing new technological products and services.