This investigation of the essential determinants of responsibility has raised a number of important points.

Firstly, there are multiple perspectives on responsibility: legal responsibilities form the framework for a first set of actions and decisions, structured around limitations and rationally integrated by companies. In this area, a range of developments are both possible and desirable in order to foster positive practices. This is illustrated by the creation and success of Benefit Corporations in both Europe and the US, structures which give weight to the ethical engagements of a company in relation to economic constraints. Other legal developments may be envisaged, notably to generalize stakeholder inclusion in the case of debated and complex innovations. A number of changes in international law are to be hoped for, with the aim of harmonizing business practices across widely varying territories.

However, responsibility is not simply a legal issue, and law alone cannot cover the whole field of responsibility. Literature on CSR adds several other dimensions to this first aspect: the economic responsibility of companies to ensure their survival in a competitive environment, governed by the obligation of profit; social responsibilities, which stem from the relations between a company and its stakeholders; and political responsibilities, which have their origins in the power and influence of a company over its environment. These different and interconnected levels and their various implications are taken into account in defining overall company strategy with regard to the multiple dimensions of responsibility.

This reading, based on fields of corporate responsibility, requires us to consider the justifications put forward by CSR authors to legitimize the cost to companies of responding to the responsibilities identified above. We identified three main types of arguments based on three main types of normative theory: deontological, consequentialist, and based on the ethics of care. The first approach stems from a representation of the relationships between a company and the rest of society, organized around the notion of stakeholders. It highlights the rights which these relationships confer on parties affected by or affecting a company, and directs analysis toward normative and legal questions linked to the identification and respect of these rights. The second set of justifications for responsibility emanates from an instrumental effort to demonstrate that greater respect for stakeholder interests, along with an investment in the development and construction of ethical responses to certain problems, results in increased benefits for the company. By integrating certain environmental demands into the decision process, according to their significance or urgency, companies are able to anticipate and prevent some of the industrial or ecological risks which might otherwise arise, thus avoiding the potentially devastating impact of negative and critical publicity. Finally, certain authors interpret corporate responsibility as a disposition to act virtuously. This approach results in governance principles which promote the culture and development of individual and organizational virtues, via an analysis of desirable qualities for actors and through appropriate institutional and cultural mechanisms. These different arguments highlight complementary aspects of responsibility; far from opposing the aspects discussed above, they should be used together.

In contrast to interpretations of business as being based on the pursuit of maximum profit, the vast range of literature on CSR offers a representation of the firm as part of a social network, which it aims to foster, and in some cases as an entity motivated by ethical standards. The idea of responsible innovation broadens this perspective, covering not only the company and its stakeholders, but all actors involved in innovation and their networks. From a normative perspective, RI promotes a collective construction of standards of good to pursue and evils to avoid, stressing the engagement of stakeholders in developing coordinated and pluralistic governance of technological and scientific development, based on reactivity, anticipation and a clearer understanding of the normative frameworks surrounding innovation. Compared to CSR, it aims to provide a fuller response to the challenges of uncertainty which are inherent in innovation phenomena, placing moral innovation at the heart of its mechanisms, and recognizing the need to create context-specific responses. CSR and RI are mutually enriching notions; whilst the latter draws on the sociology of science in identifying useful reflections and demands, with a focus on qualities such as reflexivity and adaptation, it also benefits from decades of work in CSR concerning the determinants of corporate responsibility and operational practice, studied from an empirical perspective.

In this work, we have made use of both frameworks in order to respond to the question expressed in the introduction: how can RI and CSR be used to create effective standards, despite the risk of simple window-dressing stressed by Beck [BEC 92] and others with regard to any and all efforts to moralize capitalist practices? The normative framework created by the idea of responsible innovation does not aim to transform economic practices based on free trade, completely removing its most damaging effects. It does not aim to provide a radical alternative to the ways in which socialism tried to eradicate the evils of exploitation and the incessant pursuit of profit by destroying what it considered to be their shared root, property. Taking a less revolutionary approach, the idea of responsible innovation is intended to govern and shape practices toward a greater inclusion of social welfare, as defined by other actors. The rhetoric of interest is still present, but in a different form, including concern for stakeholders and for the future of the planet.

Thus, to counteract the idea that responsible innovation or sustainable development might simply be screens for an unchanged, brutal economic system, we must consider the real effects of these ideas on corporate practice: transparency, report publication, community engagement, technological co-construction, etc. It is no longer realistic for a company to refuse to establish a position with regard to responsibility. Whilst some actors are more convinced, and more convincing, than others, the fact that responsible commitment has become a parameter for management and strategy on an equal footing with others, a new discipline in management training, represents a significant step. Ethical issues are no longer the preserve of a handful of committed, militant entrepreneurs: they now form part of the day-to-day environment of company activities. The proponents of virtue-based business ethics (such as Robert Solomon) have called for an increased focus on ethical reflection and greater attention to stakeholders, and their wishes are, increasingly, becoming reality: the place given to the idea of responsible innovation in the European Commission’s scientific policy is a good example of this.

In conclusion, while the capitalist dynamic continues to create inequality, to exhaust resources and to generate threats for both the present and the future, the principles of governance stemming from CSR and RI may be used to attenuate its most problematic effects, re-integrating ethical debate and reflection on an equal footing with purely economic rationales. The two mechanisms must operate alongside one another, reaching a level of integration where one will no longer be able to operate without the other.