Technological Innovation in a Moral Market: The Case of Human Milk Fortification in the United States

• In Event: 3483 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 15. Food and Technology

Abstract

This paper investigates the strategies that innovator firms may undertake to secure the adoption of their technological innovations in a moral market. I investigate the strategies undertaken by Prolacta, a life sciences firm that introduced new fortification technology to the human milk ecosystem in the United States. Based on collected data, I develop a model that offers three insights into the introduction of new technology in a market that is undergirded by moral considerations. First, I suggest that an entrant firm which introduces new technologies in a moral market may encounter resistance, or neutrality, because incumbents perceive the mission of the organization as being in moral conflict with their own. Second, an entrant may overcome the resistance of incumbents to technological innovation in a moral market by seeking scientific validation of the former’s disruptive technology which affirms the entrant’s commitment to the ethical mission that all actors in the market strive to pursue. Third, an entrant may convince incumbents to adopt the former’s new technologies by increasing the available forms of ethical exchange in the market. These insights make contributions to the study of technological innovation and industry ecosystems.

Author

• Arafaat A. Valiani, University of Oregon