Innovation as interaction processes: the socio-technical constitution of Mondragon Cooperative Corporation (MCC)

• In Event: Global Perspectives on Responsible Innovation: Widening the Gaze I

Abstract

Recently the 8th R&D Framework Program (2014-2020), also known as "Horizon 2020", which openly claims research and innovation heterogeneously, or inclusively, constituted from a "Science with and for Society" approach. This approach underscores the value of research and innovation for the resolution of pressing social and environmental problems resulting in RRI, which would imply a subversion of borders disciplinary and social research. Under this perspective, the challenge is to explain the processes of inclusion through case analysis, which consist of facing examples of inclusive innovations, giving way to the description of the constitution of interaction networks. Namely, and respectively (but interactively), the intention and capacity to: (i) conceive and consider a wide variety of possible scenarios linked to innovation; (ii) rethink and reconsider preferences, values, and knowledge in light of the formulation of those scenarios; (iii) open up those visions, preferences, values, and knowledge to collective deliberation processes; and (iv) develop effective governance mechanisms that institutionalize the collective or inclusive constitution of innovation (Owen, Stilgoe, Macnaghten, Gorman, Fisher & Guston, 2013, Stilgoe, Owen & Macnaghten, 2013) (Eizaguirre et al., 2016).
The purpose of this paper is to explain innovation as interaction processes through the socio-technical constitution of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, which has been the focus of multiple analyzes that ask about the keys to its success, its culture, its technology, its management and its innovation model, which includes more than 11,875 million euros in annual revenues, 260 cooperative companies, 15 technological centers, 74,117 cooperative members and with productive subsidiaries and corporate delegations in 41 countries and sales in more than 150.
The work is divided into three parts. In the first one, we will describe the socio-technical integration of the societal, ethical, cultural, environmental aspects and aspects in the scientific and technical practices of the Mondragón Corporation since the constitution of the first technological device, the Maite oil furnace. In the second part, I will describe the interaction processes between the actants that constitute MCC. Finally, in the third part, I will present some findings to understand innovation as a process of interaction through the socio-technical constitution of MCC.

Author

• Juan Carlos García-Cruz, Universidad del País Vasco, España.