Happiness, Technology and Innovation (SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research) 3030826848, 9783030826840

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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN WELLBEING AND QUALIT Y OF LIFE RESEARCH

Gaël Brulé Francis Munier

Happiness, Technology and Innovation 123

SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research

SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality-of-Life Research are concise summaries of cutting-edge research and practical applications across the field of well-being and quality of life research. These compact refereed monographs are under the editorial supervision of an international Advisory Board*. Volumes are 50 to 125 pages (approximately 20,000–70,000 words), with a clear focus. The series covers a range of content from professional to academic such as: snapshots of hot and/or emerging topics, in-depth case studies, and timely reports of state-of-the art analytical techniques. The scope of the series spans the entire field of Well-Being Research and Quality-of-Life Studies, with a view to significantly advance research. The character of the series is international and interdisciplinary and will include research areas such as: health, cross-cultural studies, gender, children, education, work and organizational issues, relationships, job satisfaction, religion, spirituality, ageing from the perspectives of sociology, psychology, philosophy, public health and economics in relation to Well-being and Quality-of-Life research. Volumes in the series may analyze past, present and/or future trends, as well as their determinants and consequences. Both solicited and unsolicited manuscripts are considered for publication in this series. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality-of-Life Research will be of interest to a wide range of individuals with interest in quality of life studies, including sociologists, psychologists, economists, philosophers, health researchers, as well as practitioners across the social sciences. Briefs will be published as part of Springer’s eBook collection, with millions of users worldwide. In addition, Briefs will be available for individual print and electronic purchase. Briefs are characterized by fast, global electronic dissemination, standard publishing contracts, easy-to-use manuscript preparation and formatting guidelines, and expedited production schedules. We aim for publication 8–12 weeks after acceptance.

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Gaël Brulé • Francis Munier

Happiness, Technology and Innovation

Gaël Brulé Forward College Université de Neuchâtel Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Francis Munier Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion BETA-CNRS Université de Strasbourg Strasbourg, France

ISSN 2211-7644 ISSN 2211-7652 (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research ISBN 978-3-030-82684-0 ISBN 978-3-030-82685-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Martin Binder (University of Bundeswehr München, Germany), Olivier Crevoisier (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Faranak Farzaneh (University of Nice, France), Monica Guillen-Royo (CICERO, Oslo, Norway), Hugues Jeannerat (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Navi Radjou, Sabrina Tabares (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Ruut Veenhoven (Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands), and Bennett Young for valuable feedback and advice.

v

Contents

Part I 1

Introduction

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Part II

3 9

Salient Theoretical Considerations

2

Does Innovation Bring Well-being? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3

Technologies: False Friends? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4

ICT: “Alone Together”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

5

Social Innovation as a Vector for a Good Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Part III

Duality of Innovation

6

The Luddites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

7

Creative Destruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Part IV

Key Issues and Future Development

8

Transhumanism, Back to the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

9

Frugal, but Happy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 vii

viii

Contents

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Responsible Research and Innovation and Innovation-Care . . . . . . . 77 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

11

Creative Goods and Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

12

Towards Positive Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frame of Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Limits of Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Positive Innovation, a Sociocultural Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Part V 13

. . . . . . .

85 85 87 89 89 89 90

Conclusion

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

About the Authors

Gaël Brulé is Assistant Professor at Forward College and a lecturer at the University of Neuchâtel. His main themes of interest are subjective well-being, sustainability, innovation, and metrics. He has coedited the books Metrics of Subjective WellBeing: Limits and Improvement (Springer, together with Filomena Maggino) and Wealth(s) and Subjective Well-being (Springer, together with Christian Suter). Francis Munier is Associate Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Management—University of Strasbourg, and a researcher at BETA-CNRS. His themes of interest are knowledge creation, entrepreneurship, and innovation, as well as well-being studies. He has published more than forty papers on these topics.

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Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract Although this has not always been the case, the “permanent quest for innovation” is at the core of our societies. Although this has unquestionably led to improvements in terms of quality of life, this has also led to undesirable consequences. Thus, we argue innovation could and should be looked at in terms of quality of life, or, more and more, in terms of happiness. Keywords Hedonic · Eudaimonic · Technoproductive · Social innovation · Paradigm

Martin (2016) surveys the different challenges that innovation studies researchers have to address. One of the major challenges is ‘From innovation for wealth creation to innovation for well-being’. Only few researchers (for instance Binder, 2013; Dolan et al., 2008, Dolan & Metcalfe, 2012; Engelbrecht, 2014) have devoted themselves to the study of this topic. In happiness research (Frey, 2018; Frey & Stutzer, 2002), this challenge of studying innovation and its impacts on happiness is not explicitly mentioned, even if questions related to the Easterlin Paradox (1974) or to Hedonic Adaptation do indeed have some indirect links with the question of progress. The study of the impact of ICT on happiness or Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is more widespread, as these technologies are having a clear effect upon individuals in our increasingly digital society. As Castellacci and Tveito (2018) suggest, one reason explaining little research on this ‘innovation—happiness’ issue may be that an implicit assumption of innovation research is that new technologies promote economic performance, which then induces an improvement in happiness. We believe that this implicit assumption requires nuance, and needs to be rethought in light of what we know and what we need to know in innovation studies (for instance Dosi, 2013); it must, moreover, be coupled with the adoption of a interdisciplinary approach, which is necessary to enrich the debate and thus allow a cross-fertilization between happiness and innovation studies. Innovation must be a source of progress: not only economic or technological progress, but also progress in the well-being of individuals and societies. Following © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_1

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1 Introduction

Munier (2021), the purpose of this book is to provide responses to this challenge, and so to understand the issues represented by the triptych: Happiness, Technology and Innovation. Before unfolding our analysis, we present some introductory elements on innovation and happiness. The extent to which our era is characterized by a fascination with and permanent quest for innovation (Handzic & Nowotny, 2006) could lead us to believe that this has always been the case, in one way or another. This thought could not be more misleading. The fact that we in our modern societies perceive innovation as intrinsically virtuous is the result of a specific historical process. As a matter of fact, the term “innovation” even in its origins had a negative valence: the term derives from early-thirteenth-century “novation,” referring to a change in a debtor’s contract. As Godin (2012) remarks, until the eighteenth century a “novator” was viewed with suspicion. As a result, innovation was covered by a veil of mistrust, and inventions faced two major obstacles. The first was due to the religious climate of pre-Renaissance societies, where novelty was considered as heresy. The second had its roots in popular culture, with the inventors of the eighteenth century being figures of mockery, their inventions caricatured as scientifically nugatory and tantamount to fraud. Initially covering a wide spectrum of domains (health, art, science, literature), innovation was gradually reduced to technological innovation from the nineteenth century on. This was mainly a result of the institutionalization of inventions, in particular through patents and related privileges, reinforced by the ascendance of utilitarianism and materialism, which gave rise to a “culture of things.” The five types of innovation attributed to Schumpeter (1934)—i.e., new products, new methods of production, new markets, new sources of supply, and new ways to organize business—lay emphasis on the techno-productive form of innovation, which defines innovation primarily as the introduction of “a new good [. . .] or of a new quality of good” or the introduction of “a new method of production.” It is only recently that innovation has gradually become distinguished from technical invention and more associated with commercial diffusion by professionals from the private sector and scholars from business schools. According to Godin (2012), this historical process has resulted in a three-fold tropism: (1) innovation as positive, (2) innovation as technological, (3) innovation as market-oriented only. Half a century before Schumpeter, Tarde (1890) played an important role in describing modernity from the perspective of invention and defining the status that the inventor was starting to enjoy, which characterises modernity. Until quite recently the term was mostly used in the sense of technological innovation, as for example in the phrase: “the creation of a new product-market-technology-organization-combination” (Boer & During, 2001, p. 84). This double trend (market-oriented and technology-oriented) is explicit almost to the level of caricature in the following expression: “Innovation ¼ theoretical conception + technical invention + commercial exploitation” (Trott, 2012, p. 15). However, as noted by Gault (2013), these initial tropisms among scholars of innovation have slowly attenuated, and the rigid initial framework has been extended to non-technological and non-commercial applications. The Olso Manual, which is a

1 Introduction

5

reference in the field of innovation, has evolved in line with these new versions: the fourth version of the manual defines an innovation as “a new or improved product or process (or combination thereof) that differs significantly from the unit’s previous products or processes and that has been made available to potential users (product) or brought into use by the unit (process).” Among the many improvements considered vis-à-vis the third version of 2005, the manual states in particular that it “provides a conceptual framework and a general definition of innovation that is applicable to all sectors in the economy (Business, Government, Non-profit institutions serving households and Households)” (OECD/ Eurostat, 2018, p. 22). Because innovation has in the past been described indifferently as an input, a process, and an output (as we shall see in particular in the case of social innovation), the manual distinguishes the outcome (innovation) from the activities underpinning it (innovation activities). There are several ways in which the various forms of innovation have been classified. One can cite among others the field of innovation, the degree of advancement compared to the previous state of the art (incremental vs radical (or disruptive) according to Schumpeter (1934) and Christensen (1997)), and the underlying mechanisms. Regarding the latter, a common distinction is the opposition between technological and non-technological innovations (OECD, 2011), but it is also possible to look at the issue in a more granular way. Jeannerat et al. (2019) consider three types of innovation: technoproductive (driven by material and often industrial advancements), cultural (driven by immaterial changes), and social (made by or for people). Although the three forms are always present to some extent at the same time, it is possible to relate them to corresponding eras of innovation: the technoproductive led the way from the postwar period until the 1980s. From the 1990s the economy became increasingly driven by immaterial factors: in particular, innovation processes were increasingly led by cultural factors. Finally, most recently, social innovation became a new paradigm of innovation. Although the concept of social innovation can be traced back to the 1960s (Moulaert, 2000) or even earlier (Godin, 2012), it has gained strong momentum since about three decades ago. First appearing as a form of top-down social innovation (public innovation), it has more recently taken the form of bottom-up innovation emerging from grassroots movements. The subprime crisis of 2008–2009, as well as the ecological crisis, combined with the ubiquity of technology and social media, prompted an upsurge of grassroots movements that led to (and stemmed from) the rise of small labs, makers, and DIY innovation initiatives in which values were co-created and, in some cases, institutionalized. These different forms of innovation are characterized by different scales (from macro to micro), different driving forces (industrial technology for technoproductive, ICT for cultural, and social media for social innovation), and different underlying values (Lundvall, 1992). Historically, research on innovation has focused on understanding the reasons for the success of the innovation process, with a combined attention on inputs such as the number of researchers or the money invested in R&D, and on outputs such as the number of innovations and patents (Jeannerat et al., 2019). The underlying

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assumption was that innovation was a linear process, which as we now know is not the case (see, e.g., Kline, 1985, Michelsen, 2009). In addition, research on innovation has demonstrated the impact of innovation on economic growth and productivity, which means that another hypothesis has emerged, namely that innovation is exclusively beneficial. Nevertheless, there can also be a darker side to innovation and technology, causing deleterious effects at the individual, collective, or environmental level. One could cite, for instance, possible effects such as negative externalities (pollution and unemployment), hyper-consumption, loneliness, or authoritarian excesses that can result from the creative destruction. In other words, innovation does not always coincide with progress, but sometimes also with a form of regression; alternatively, it could entail progress for some groups and social distress for others. Knowing the exact effect of each is not a trivial matter. It is not always easy to measure progress, influence, or impact. What metrics, what indicators should be chosen such that we can describe an invention as a positive innovation or not? When looking at the trends in social indicators, one can observe that since the pioneering work done by the school of Chicago and other researchers in the 20s and 30s (Ogburn, 1922; and the first report on US social trends in 1933), in the 50s and 60s a lot of work was done on developing and integrating subjective indicators (feelings of insecurity, feelings of inequality) to complement the metrics providing information on objective aspects of the environment (criminality rate, inequality, wealth). Following these dynamics, well-being was pushed as a prime candidate to evaluate the quality of life of individuals, with the following rationale: if people declare themselves happy, maybe their quality of life is good. Well-being has been observed both from an external perspective (objective well-being) and from an internal one (subjective well-being) (see, e.g., Keyes, 2002).1 The paradox identified by Easterlin (1974), according to which the number of Americans declaring themselves very happy had plateaued or slightly decreased despite an increase in economic prosperity, acted as a catalyst to develop the field. Pioneers such as Ruut Veenhoven, Alex Michalos, and Kenneth Land, as well as many positive psychologists (Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Martin Seligman, Ed Diener) and others developed what would become well-being or quality-of-life studies. This does not mean that the field was constituted in a homogeneous fashion. There are several ways in which one can capture well-being, such as needs theory, or the eudaimonic, capabilities, hedonic, and evaluative approaches. The first three of these refer to the criteria that one should meet in order to live well. These are inputbased theories, in the sense that they check the conditions for one to live well. The last two refer to how people actually feel, although their focus is on different matters. We develop these ideas below.

1

Since Plato and Aristotle there has been a debate on whether the good life was an idea or something to be attained on Earth. This difference entailed a difference in the relation to pleasures, with Plato avoiding them and Aristotle thinking that they can be good with moderation. The one thing they agreed on was that virtue was the best way to achieve a good life and attain some form of happiness.

1 Introduction

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Needs theory emerged from psychological studies, and in particular from the work of Abraham Maslow (1943, 1970a, 1970b), who thought that psychology had too much focus on the dark side of the human psyche and not enough on the bright. Before him, psychology had been dominated by two main approaches, the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and the behavioural theory of Skinner. Maslow developed what would become known as the hierarchy of needs. Although it has been debated whether the hierarchy was the proper way to do it (see, e.g., Wahba & Bridwell, 1976), Maslow (1943) was clear that, in order to thrive, people to need to have their physiological and safety needs met, along with more advanced needs (belonging, self-esteem, self-actualization). To these five needs he would in a later version add three others (cognitive, aesthetic, and transcendence) (Maslow, 1970a; Maslow, 1970b). His theory served as a basis for many other researchers, who complemented or contested it with other versions. In that regard, the theory of Alderfer (1969) merged Maslow’s needs into three categories, existence, relatedness, and growth, in what would be known as ERG theory. Later theories, such as Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) needs theories (Doyal & Gough, 1991; Max-Neef, 1991), and Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), have all used, complemented, and developed Maslow’s foundation, sometimes in very different ways. What brings all these theories together is that they are concerned with checking whether some human needs are being developed or not, and explain human functioning on that basis. The capabilities approach and eudaimonic theories are not considered as needs theories, as they also include moral ingredients such as the need for justice or goodness. Yet the capabilities approach attributed to Sen and Nussbaum also looks into the conditions for thriving, mixing needs that are basic (physiological, safety) with those that are more advanced (being able to imagine, being able to play, and the ability to connect with other species). The eudaimonic school,2 too, aims at capturing a multifaceted conception of well-being and brings into consideration less immediate and more abstract conceptions such as self-realization, quality of relationships, hope, self-esteem, etc. It is measured through 6, 8, 10, and 12 items and condensed into a unique measure. Although more advanced and more hybrid than needs theories, the capabilities and eudaimonic approaches are still concerned with input indicators, that is, the conditions that prefigure the well-being of the individual. In contrast to these we also have hedonic, output-based theories, in which respondents are asked to evaluate their well-being without predetermined concepts being used to measure it. The hedonic conception of well-being aims at capturing the positive and negative affects we experience daily. It is measured by questions such as “how often did you feel happy during the last month”, by questions on positive affects such as “how happy do you feel now?” or “how much joy did you experience yesterday?” or on negative affects “how often did you experience sadness, anger, etc.” Questions can use single

2 The term “eudaimonia” comes from Greek words eu (good) + daimonia (demons), as in the pre-Socratic period it was thought that happiness was a gift of good demons.

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1 Introduction

Table 1.1 Four qualities of life and existing theories (adapted from Veenhoven, 2009) Life chances

Life results

Outer qualities Livability of the environment • Capability theory (environmental part) Utility of life

Inner qualities Life ability of the person • Capability theory (individual part) • Eudaimonic theories Satisfaction • Hedonic theories (evaluative, positive/negative affects, life satisfaction, contentment)

or multiple items, such as an index combining positive and negative emotions, an example being the Hedonic Score of Affects (see, e.g., in Brulé & Veenhoven, 2015). Finally, the evaluative conception looks into measures that assess to what degree respondents enjoy the life they lead. This can be measured, for instance, by questions on life satisfaction or on contentment, such as the Cantril ladder. According to Veenhoven (2009), life satisfaction captures the hedonic and cognitive aspects of well-being simultaneously, while contentment is mostly cognitive. Veenhoven (2009) distinguishes four types of qualities of life depending on whether one considers the chances or the results, and on whether one looks at life from the perspective of the environment or the individual (see Table 1.1). We have inserted the different theories into his matrix (following his advice, for which we are grateful). Capabilities and needs theories are split between the top categories, whereas capabilities approaches are more on the top right. Finally, satisfaction encompasses all hedonic theories and output-based measures (evaluative, positive/ negative affects, life satisfaction, contentment). We will focus mainly on the bottomright quadrant, simply because Subjective Well-Being as measured by life satisfaction is often the most-used metric. Although these indicators have been criticized (see, e.g., Brulé & Maggino, 2017), well-being is at the same time a way to measure the quality of a given environment through cross-sectional studies, while the evolution of a given situation can be assessed through well-being in time series. The purpose of this book is threefold: (1) to understand under what conditions innovation and technology lead to or hinder the emergence of happiness; (2) to understand how, in turn, happiness can lead to innovation and technology development via the process of creativity and the role of the entrepreneur and employee engagement; and (3) to provide a framework for reconciling happiness and the bright side of innovation and technology by proposing a new concept: Positive Innovation. Its guiding principle is to question whether innovation and technology improve people’s quality of life in general, as well as to delve into more details such as what category of person benefits from it and what categories undergo negative changes. The book is divided into three parts. The first part analyses the salient theoretical considerations. This part is dedicated to the study of the impact of innovation on subjective well-being (SWB), and the effect of technology on happiness; we will then address the specific question of the impact of information and communication technologies on happiness and on social innovation. The second part highlights the

References

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duality of innovation by addressing the issues of Luddism and Creative Destruction. The third and final part offers some perspectives on our research question, addressing topics such as transhumanism, Responsible innovation & research, care innovation, frugal innovation, resonance, and creative goods; our aim here is to develop the concept of Positive Innovation. We will discuss whether this concept can serve as a heuristic framework for understanding innovation and happiness and promoting a fruitful relation between them. The objective of studying these elements of the nexus is less to complete the picture than to provide the reader with elements for further reflection on the matter.

References Alderfer, C. P. (1969). An empirical test of a new theory of human needs. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 4(2), 142–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(69)90004-X. Binder, M. (2013). Innovativeness and subjective well-being. Social Indicators Research, 111(2), 561–578. Boer, H., & During, W. E. (2001). Innovation, what innovation? A comparison between product, process and organizational innovation. International Journal of Technology Management, 22, 83–109. Brulé, G., & Maggino, F. (2017). Metrics of subjective well-being: Limits and improvements. Cham: Springer. Brulé, G., & Veenhoven, R. (2015). Geography of happiness: Components of happiness in 133 nations. International Journal of Happiness and Development, 2(2), 1. http://www. inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid¼70070. Castellacci, F., & Tveito, V. (2018). Internet use and well-being: A survey and a theoretical framework. Research Policy, 47(1), 308–325. Christensen, C. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety: Experiencing flow in work and play. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Dolan, P., & Metcalfe, R. (2012). The-relationship-between-innovation-and-subjective-wellbeing. Research Policy, 41(8), 1489–1498. Dolan, P., Metcalfe, R., Powdthavee, N., Beale, A., & Pritchard D. (2008). Innovation and wellbeing. (Innovation Index Working Paper – NESTA). Dosi, G. (2013). Innovation, evolution, and economics: Where we are and where we should go. In J. Fagerberg, B. R. Martin, & E. S. Andersen (Eds.), Innovation studies, evolution and future challenges (pp. 111–133). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doyal, L., & Gough, G. (1991). A theory of human need. London: Macmillan. Easterlin, R. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In R. David & R. Reder (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz. New York: Academic. Engelbrecht, H. J. (2014). A general model of the innovation – subjective well-being nexus. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 24(2), 377–397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-014-0343-y. Frey, B. (2018). Economics of happiness. Cham: Springer. Frey, B., & Stutzer, A. (2002). What can economists learn from happiness research? Journal of Economic Literature, 40(2), 402–435. https://doi.org/10.1257/002205102320161320. Gault, F. (2013). Innovation indicators and measurement: An overview. In F. Gault (Ed.), Handbook of innovation indicators and measurement (pp. 3–38). London: Edward Elgar Publishing.

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Godin, B. (2012). “Innovation studies”: The invention of a specialty. Minerva, 50(4), 397–421. Retrieved January 22, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43548560 Handzic, M., & Nowotny, H. (2006). Cultures of technology and the quest for innovation. New York: Berghahn Books. Jeannerat, H., Crevoisier, O., Brulé, G., & Suter, C. (2019). L’apport des sciences humaines et sociales à l’innovation en Suisse (“the contribution of social sciences and humanities to innovation in Switzerland”), Report Recherche et innovation en Suisse 2020. Keyes, C. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life. Journal of Health Social Behaviours, 43(2), 207–222. Kline, S. (1985). Innovation is not a linear process. Research Management, 28(4), 36–45. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24120799 Lundvall, B. Å. (1992). National systems of innovation: Towards a theory of innovation and interactive learning. London: Pinter Publishers. Martin, B. R. (2016). Twenty challenges for innovation studies. Science and Public Policy, 43(3), 432–450. ISSN 0302-3427. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346. Maslow, A. H. (1970a). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row. Maslow, A. H. (1970b). Religions, values, and peak experiences. New York: Penguin. (Original work published 1966). Max-Neef, M. (1991). Human scale development. New York: Apex Press. Michelsen, A. (2009). Innovation and creativity: Beyond diffusion — On ordered (thus determinable) action and creative organization. Thesis Eleven, 96(1), 64–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0725513608099120. Moulaert, F. (2000). Globalization and integrated area development in European Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Munier, F. (2021). Innovation and subjective Well-being. In D. Uzunidis (Ed.), Handbook of innovation. New-York: Wiley. OECD. (2011). Mixed modes of innovation, in OECD science, technology and industry scoreboard 2011. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/sti_scoreboard-2011-44-en. OECD/Eurostat. (2018). Oslo manual 2018: Guidelines for collecting, reporting and using data on innovation (4th ed., The measurement of scientific, technological and innovation activities). Paris/Eurostat: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264304604-en. Ogburn, W. (1922). Social change: With respect to culture and original nature. New York: B. W. Huebsch. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and Well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78. Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The theory of economic development. Oxford: Galaxy Books. 1912. Tarde, G. (1890). Les lois de l’imitation (“the laws of imitation”). Paris: Félix Alcan. Trott, P. (2012). Innovation management and new product development (5th ed.). Harlow: FT/Prentice Hall. Veenhoven, R. (2009). How do we assess how happy we are? Tenets, implications and tenability of three theories. In A. Dutt & B. Radcliff (Eds.), Happiness, economics and politics. New York: Edward Elgar Publishing. Wahba, M. A., & Bridwell, L. G. (1976). Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 15(2), 212–240. https://doi. org/10.1016/0030-5073(76)90038-6.

Part II

Salient Theoretical Considerations

This part is devoted to methodological reflections and a review of the empirical and theoretical literature on our topic. We are interested in the general question of the impact of innovation on happiness, to see also in this chapter the question of creativity source of happiness and innovation. We then study the effect of technologies on well-being, highlighting the ambivalence of the effects, and then we focus on well-being in a digital society. Are we ‘alone together’ and finally not so happy? The last chapter concerns the issue of social innovation as a promise of a good life.

Chapter 2

Does Innovation Bring Well-being?

Abstract In this chapter, we study the relationship between innovation and happiness. After a philosophical detour showing a distinction between quiet and wild innovation, we examine the methodological aspects in the analysis of the impact of innovation on subjective well-being. We then propose a review of the literature, also focusing on the link between creativity and happiness as source of innovation. Keywords Innovation · Subjective well being · Entrepreneur · Creativity

This aim of this chapter is to understand the link between innovation and subjective well-being, thus highlighting the two sides of innovation. Contrary to the mainstream position in the economics of innovation, our line of questioning brings us close to what is today called the “dark side of innovation” (Chopra, 2013). In other words, once it is accepted that innovation can also have noxious effects (Biggi & Giuliani, 2020), and that the concept must therefore be understood as a possible oxymoron (as both dark and bright), the theoretical and empirical question of the link between innovation and subjective well-being becomes highly pertinent and meaningful. This notion of the dark side of innovation seems to be becoming more and more important in the field of the economics of innovation. Even though this approach is not explicitly linked to happiness, it has the merit of highlighting the existence of side effects or “revenge effects” (Tenner, 1997), which also have negative impacts on the well-being of individuals. Taking these aspects into consideration seems to us to be crucial, as it has become too easy to consider innovation as a magic word, a secret of performance and success that necessarily leads to improvement. Our approach thus has the merit of nuance. Coad et al. (2020) put forward the following observation: life conditions seem to be getting better in many respects (health, life expectancy, transport, communication, etc.), but if we look at the indicators more closely, things do not appear quite so miraculous, and this can also be explained by innovations, especially in the areas of health and the environment. The authors recall Nelson’s (1962) statement that innovation has a direction and a degree of change. Evolutionary selection thus © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_2

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does not automatically lead to the suppression of bad innovation, nor can the selection environment in itself prefigure notions of good or evil. In this respect, our question is not one of identifying good or bad innovations, but rather of trying to understand the nature of the innovation and the context in which it takes place, in order to establish a more refined and nuanced reading grid, particularly in terms of the impacts on happiness. Therefore, instead of a normative classification of innovation (good versus bad), we ask questions about the impacts of innovation on happiness at the level of society (macro-level), of clusters of innovation (mesolevel), and of the users, of the employees involved in the innovative process, and of the entrepreneurs themselves (micro-level). After posing the key theoretical and methodological questions pertaining to the causality between the two items, we present the main empirical results. First, it is important to differentiate the influence of innovation on well-being with respect to the type of innovation. Among the different forms of innovation presented in the introduction (techno-productive, cultural and social; cf. Jeannerat et al., 2019), one can assume that social innovation seems to be the most related to subjective well-being, because it is “often prompted by unhappiness, disappointment, or anger” (Mulgan, 2012, 36); and as noted by Engelbrecht (2014), the link between social innovation and subjective well-being is more “intuitive” than the link between technological innovation and subjective well-being. We will address this point in Chap. 5 of this section. Many authors have dwelt on the bright side of innovation (Biggi & Giuliani, 2020). The evolutionary approach highlights the positive relationship between economic growth and innovation (Dosi et al., 1988; Nelson & Winter, 1982), innovation thereby being established as the main factor underpinning growth and competitiveness in the economy of technological change (Freeman, 1988; Lundvall, 1992), a result that is also taken up in endogenous growth models (Aghion & Howitt, 1998; Romer, 1986). Thus, we can well see that innovation is synonymous with progress (in the sense of economic progress) according to this paradigm of thought. To go further in the analysis and show that there is a need for nuance, we believe that an interdisciplinary approach is fruitful. A philosophical turn is useful in order to understand the impact of innovation on happiness. Ménissier (2021) recalls certain synchronic and diachronic elements of the philosophical understanding of the concept of innovation. Innovation can simply be considered as what is new (novo), or, in the sense of economic theory, innovation can be considered as necessarily feeding economic growth because of its efficiency and profitability. In this sense, innovation is progress. This assertion is important for understanding our research. According to the economics of innovation, innovation as progress is improvement with a positive influence on the good life. The notion of progress can also be understood as modernity, in the sense that being modern is a rupture with the past. The strain of modernity leads, according to Max Weber, to the disenchantment of the world, in which the rational posture replaces deep-rooted beliefs and traditions. Scientific knowledge then improves society, providing more well-being. This is a dynamic that leads to more and more innovation, aimed at rationalization and modernization. The philosopher reminds us that knowledge must lead to

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happiness, according to Condorcet and Kant. Progressivism, rationality, and industry in the sense of Saint-Simon are the vectors which make individuals happy in a just and harmonious society. When innovation is understood as novelty, whether or not its utility has been proven, it is important to identify the changes that it brings about in the behaviour of individuals. This is even more the case when innovations are radical and involve an ontological transformation. In this respect, Ménissier (2021) evokes the ideal of a “calmed innovation,” which would be the correlate of progress, the bright side of innovation. But due to the disruptive nature of innovation (Christensen, 1997), this innovation–progress nexus becomes called into question. What he calls “wild innovation” can possibly in itself disrupt the good life. Innovations shape us and our relationship to others and to the world. A dilemma (Munier, 2016) therefore emerges, since too much “wild innovation” induces little progress while not enough “wild innovation” also kills the spirit of innovation necessary for any society. Where is the “juste milieu,” actually, according to us, when happiness is affected. Let us go further in explaining the methodological difficulties. The relationship expressed in the dyad “innovation–subjective well-being” may itself be called into question. Binder and Witt (2019) highlight two possible complications in the analysis of the relationship between innovation and subjective well-being. A first limitation is the fact that, although the impact of innovation on economic growth is rather easy to show and observe at a macro level, it is more difficult to identify this impact at the individual level, a fortiori on a case-by-case basis. In the light of such imagery as the “perennial gale of creative destruction” (Schumpeter, 1942, p. 84), the “restless nature of capitalism,” or Metcalfe’s notion (Metcalfe, 2001, p. 561), the mitigated impact of innovation on subjective well-being may indeed be admitted. There are winners, but also losers, classed as pecuniary externalities. Moreover, due to the novel nature of innovation, it is sometimes impossible to anticipate all the implications and consequences of these innovations. It is also crucial to consider the risks inherent in certain technological innovations, which may induce negative externalities in terms of health or ecology. This corresponds to the dark side of innovation, or to the “revenge effect” (Tenner, 1997). A second limitation stems from the fact that the innovation itself can lead to a change in perception or even in a lowering of the measure of subjective well-being. It is necessary to go beyond the standard view of welfare economics, and consider the fact that preferences are not given and invariable but rather evolve, in particular under the influence of innovations. This is even more the case when the innovation is radical and consumers are forced to learn to use the new technology. Binder (2013), and Binder and Witt (2019) propose some interesting considerations regarding the question: What are the effects of innovativeness on subjective well-being? The authors remark that radical innovation has greater consequences for society while also being more difficult to predict (the dichotomy “radical versus incremental” as well as “macro-invention versus micro-invention” are pertinent for understanding the dyad “innovation–subjective well-being”). The uncertain character of innovation is also to be taken into account, which is why the standard approach does not offer an adequate framework of analysis, and the adoption of an

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evolutionary approach seems more suitable (Binder, 2013). While innovation should lead to progress, Binder underlines that an approach based on subjective well-being is relevant to understand the progress of a society and its individuals. The individual–society transmission is not at all automatic, in the sense that it is possible to observe an improvement in individual happiness and not in collective happiness, and vice versa. Binder also recommends that we focus on the demand rather than the supply side, the latter being much better documented. However, according to Binder (2013), once the individual as a consumer becomes the object of analysis, we come up against the epistemic difficulty of the impossibility of predicting future preferences. We do not fully agree with his assertion, however, in the sense that it will depend on the degree of darkness as regards the innovation and the degree of anticipation of consumers. Considering the development of theoretical and empirical research on happiness, Binder (2013) suggests two evaluation rules, the “life domain evaluation principle” and the “welfare dynamics principle,” as relevant guides for the normative assessment of innovation. Beyond these possible limitations, it is interesting at this stage to set out some interesting and relevant results. Dolan et al. (2008) and Dolan and Metcalfe (2012) conclude based on a survey that innovation has to be considered when determining subjective well-being. The authors consider three main measures of well-being: objective lists, preference satisfaction, and mental states. From this perspective, innovation can be assessed according to its impacts on heath, income and education. This is close to considerations that pertain to the capabilities approach (to be and to do) proposed by Sen. Referring to the utilitarian approach based on agents’ preferences, a person’s life improves if he or she gets more of what he or she desires. Thus, in this context, innovation is concerned with people’s readiness to pay for innovative goods, or with the additional income from innovation that leads to greater satisfaction and happiness. If, on the contrary, the mental state is considered, the effect of the innovation must be understood as positive in the sense that the individual may evaluate himself positively following the purchase of an innovative product or service. Recognizing the multiple possible measurements of subjective well-being, Dolan et al. (2008) and Dolan and Metcalfe (2012) place their focus upon mental health, as used in particular in positive psychology, in the sense that individuals can estimate their own feeling about their life. Based on this choice of measure, the research attempts to answer three questions related to (i) the existence of a relationship between innovation and subjective well-being, (ii) whether it is subject to the choice of measures of both innovation and well-being, and finally (iii) how a creative environment can lead to greater happiness. They show a positive impact of innovation on subjective well-being and, conversely, it seems that subjective well-being induces a stronger innovative and creative capacity. More precisely, in Dolan et al. (2008), they suggest that the purchase of consumer goods (especially electronic goods) increases individual satisfaction. That said, in addition to the problem of possible self-selection, we can perceive a limitation insofar as these goods are not necessarily an innovation. It is also important to mention the effect of public innovation (Meijer & Thaens, 2020), which has sometimes been seen as part of social innovation (Jeannerat et al.,

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2019) or as a very closely related concept (Unceta & Barandiaran, 2019). Although several conceptions of public innovation exist (see Levesque, 2012 for a review), these innovations are initiated by public actors with the objective of achieving greater efficiency and legitimacy, as in the New Public management, or to create public value, as in Public Value Management (Levesque, 2014). This became a central topic after the ascent to power of Thatcher and Reagan in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Savoie, 1994). As for other forms of innovation, these public innovations are seen as the magic solution to all ills (Jordan, 2014), a form of permanent injunction based on the belief that technological and social innovations lead to greater flexibility and efficiency. However, Meijer and Thaens (2020) highlight the existence of perverse effects here, reflecting the dark side of innovation. These perverse effects in the wake of public innovation ultimately have a mixed impact on the well-being of citizens. A systematic review of the literature allows them to identify ten types of perverse effect: a first perverse effect is the lack of stability that results from the emphasis on continuous innovation. Innovation can also lead to illegal practices, corruption, and waste of public money. Another perverse effect of public innovation is the lack of democratic control, undermining of local initiatives, and disruption of the balance of power An eighth perverse effect of public innovation is undesirability: practices or processes can be developed that produce “negative results for stakeholders”; a ninth perverse effect is “technocratic domination of public processes”; and the final is one that it creates “unforeseen safety risks” that outweigh the benefits of innovation. The point here is not to praise conservatism, but to point out that once again it is important to nuance one’s remarks in order to better understand the effects of innovation on well-being: for these effects obviously include forms of stress and anxiety which have a significant deleterious effect on happiness. Biggi and Giuliani (2020) conduct a literature review of the noxious effects of innovation. Their study is remarkable in that it highlights different clusters, such as the impact of technologies on the workplace, the effects on growth, unsustainable transitions, the danger of emerging technologies, and the dark side of open innovation. Even if this analysis does not address the question of happiness as such, it offers an important panorama of noxious effects that may also have effects on the wellbeing of individuals. Based on these clusters, we can thus understand the effects of innovation at the individual and societal level. For instance, Dosi (2013) and Soete (2013) identify the role of innovation in finance as an explanation of the 2008 crisis. Howson (2021) demonstrates the deleterious role of cryptocurrencies on the environment. Korinek and Stiglitz (2017) highlight the negative effects of AI on employment and the fair distribution of revenue. In both cases, the effects on happiness of economic crisis and unemployment, as well as inequality, are well known (Clark & Oswald, 1994; Pickett & Wilkinson, 2018). It is also interesting to note that some innovations, such as in ICT or the field of agriculture, can induce a challenge at the level of sustainability: in the case of ICT, for example, we are witnessing an explosion in the energy used as a result of excessive consumption of these technologies. Herring (2004) also highlights the

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existence of rebound effects, such as in the case of green buildings which lead people to consume more, or in the case of air transport where the use of less-energyintensive processes leads to lower prices and therefore more flights. The potential danger of some emerging technological innovations (nanotechnology, Big Data, the Internet of Things, cognitive computing, virtual technologies, social media, geoengineering, genetic engineering) is thus shown to be linked to its inherent uncertainty. Without falling into forms of conspiracy, the authors in this area are obviously concerned show the importance of a certain degree of prudence, in the sense that, as Francois Rabelais said, “science without conscience is only the ruin of the soul.” What about the people involved in the innovation process, as well as those who are tasked with integrating an innovation into their workplace team? Referring again to the work of Biggi and Giuliani (2020), at the employee level it is also maintained that open innovation can have deleterious effects on employees, inducing effects such as lower knowledge production, and reduced performance with fewer opportunities for development. Once again, it is clear that the innovation-as-alwayspositive bias also appears when research attempts to understand the impact of innovation on the employees involved. More often, innovation is treated as a dependent variable without seeming to pay attention to the consequences that the innovations may have on the subjective well-being of teams and employees. Gonzalez-Roma and Hernandez (2016) note the lack of studies which include innovation as an independent variable, referring in particular to the work of Anderson et al. (2014) who insist on the need to shed more light on the dark side. In this respect, it is interesting to note that Gonzalez-Roma and Hernandez (2016) show in particular that the number of innovations has a positive effect on team performance but also an indirect negative effect on this performance via an aggravation of the team’s negative moods. This result is interesting because it shows the existence of dysfunctional innovation within teams within an organization. Biggi and Giuliani (2020) show that an important cluster of noxious effects is related to the adoption of ICT in the workplace: in particular, psychological dependencies, and notorious and harmful effects on work–life balance, job satisfaction, and finally burn-out. We go into more detail about these technologies in a later chapter. Barth et al. (2009) study the effects of managerial innovations on employee wellbeing. Interestingly, these innovations have a negative impact on well-being, expressed by higher anxiety. This is corroborated by the observation of a negative impact on job satisfaction, with a moderation of these impacts where unions are present and accompany these managerial innovations. The authors recall the existence of controversies on the impacts of innovative working practices, noting that there are two opposing schools of thought, one seeing opportunities for workers and the other seeing sources of stress. One way of understanding these differences is based on the degree of engagement of people, and the fairness in the way in which the innovation is introduced. Huhtala and Parzefall (2007) state in this regard that understanding the “innovativeness of innovations” at work depends on balancing exhaustion and commitment with a negative and positive effect on well-being respectively.

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It is pertinent to seek to understand what motivations there may be for employees to innovate. In this regard, Farzaneh and Boyer (2017) offer an instructive overview by reminding us that motivations can be both intrinsic and extrinsic, and that positive emotions are sources of greater involvement in the innovation process, especially via creativity. The effect of innovation on the environment has also been called into question. As noted by Schot and Steinmueller (2018), “innovation contributes massively to the current resource-intensive, wasteful and fossil-fuel-based paradigm of mass production and mass consumption” (p. 1562). To conclude this chapter, we can study the relationship if happiness also leads to innovation. One way to understand this is to consider that creativity is a source of happiness and innovation (Dolan et al., 2008; Dolan & Metcalfe, 2012). Creativity appears to be a source of innovation that can lead to effective problem solving, or even the creation of new concepts, methodologies, tools, techniques, etc. We here explain the notion of creativity by highlighting its dual nature: in brief, creativity is the resolution of dichotomies and oppositions (Munier, 2013). We then study the “creativity–happiness” relationship on two levels. At the individual level, we note that empirical analyses show a reciprocal positive correlation between the creative act and happiness. In particular, we refer to Flow Theory and to the impact of innovation on the well-being of entrepreneur. Then we evoke the second level, that of the link between the creative city, the creative class, and happiness, following the work of Florida. The theory of flow was famously developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1975). It is now widely considered to be one of the pillars of positive psychology, and has also percolated outside the borders of that domain, partly because of its scientific robustness, and in part because it is simple to understand and finds application in a vast number of fields. In brief, flow refers to the psychological state into which individuals enter when they are totally immersed in their activity. Whether in sport, music, art, or craft, the individuals who reach this temporary state achieve greater results, have lower anxiety, and display higher levels of subjective well-being (Vittersø, 2004). The state of flow has been associated with several characteristics (see Csikszentmihalyi, 1990): the balance between level of skill and level of challenge (too easy is not stimulating, whereas too hard is worrying), the focus on the task, a clear target, clear feedback, no distraction, a focus on the action, a dilution of the ego, and the autotelic nature of the experience. During moments of flow, individuals can be so engaged in their activities that they might forget to eat or to rest. Flow is also observed and felt in daily situations such as schooling (Pawin, 2018), walking, or at work. Flow at work has been associated with three main constitutive elements: absorption, pleasure in working, and intrinsic motivation (Bakker, 2008). Part of the work of Csikszentmihalyi has been dedicated to entrepreneurs, which makes sense as entrepreneurs are often more intrinsically motivated than employees, in spite of working under conditions that can be seen as less favorable (see, e.g., Amabile, 1997). Therefore, it is important to scrutinize the link between innovation and well-being through the lens of flow and intrinsic motivation. Because they are often driven by intrinsic motivation, inventors and

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innovators can more frequently attain states of flow and higher well-being, which would plausibly lead to more innovation. In that sense, innovation could be seen as a consequence of the pursuit of personal values, intrinsic motivation, and autotelic pleasures. What about the entrepreneur? We take up here some developments of Munier (2021). Research on entrepreneurship has largely focused on the figure of the entrepreneur as the origin of improved company performance in terms of turnover, sales, and profit. Researchers have observed a correlation between the profile of the entrepreneur and the performance of the company (Liu & Munier, 2019). However, there has been little research on the subjective well-being of the entrepreneur, especially in relation to the topic of innovation. In a special issue of the Journal of Business Venturing devoted to subjective well-being, Wiklund et al. (2019) mention in particular Stephan (2018), who identifies only four studies on this subject published in entrepreneurship journals between 1950 and 2010. In the last decade this topic has been growing in importance, with researchers increasingly interested in this dimension of the entrepreneur’s subjective well-being (see the recent and thorough article by Binder and Blankenberg (2021)). Sherman et al. (2016) study the relationship between well-being and flow, productivity, and success. Even though this does not explicitly concern innovation, they observe that the subjective well-being of entrepreneurs increases with the presence of flow, which is defined as a state of total concentration on a subject which brings a feeling of well-being. Audretsch and Belitski (2015) conducted an interesting study on the connection between the level of happiness in a city (using major cities in Europe) and entrepreneurial activity. Although this study does not have a particular focus on the issue of innovation, it has the advantage of highlighting the importance of the environment and quality of life in attracting entrepreneurs, who are also a source of innovation. They do show that the level of happiness in a city explains higher entrepreneurial activity. Jensen et al. (2017) show that entrepreneurial activities such as innovation bring monetary results but also well-being. This can be measured in terms of job satisfaction, work–life balance, and life satisfaction. They observe that entrepreneurial innovations lead to greater life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and a better work–life balance. The authors show that this is even more prevalent in China, and conclude that the social context is important to understand the influence of innovation on the well-being of entrepreneurs. We take up here some developments of Munier (2021). Following the work of Jensen et al. (2017), Liu and Munier (2019), after conducting a study on the relationships between innovation, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with work–life balance, also suggest that innovation and job satisfaction are positively linked for entrepreneurs: very innovative entrepreneurs experience higher satisfaction in their jobs. They argue that if people are happier in their working environments, their happiness will overflow to other areas of their life. They also propose a distinction between opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs. For all entrepreneurs, Liu and Munier’s findings show that innovation benefits life satisfaction. When they sort the

References

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samples into opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs, this relationship does not change; however, the necessity entrepreneurs’ life satisfaction is more affected by innovation as compared to opportunity entrepreneurs. Innovation has a direct impact on satisfaction with work–life balance for all entrepreneurs. For necessity entrepreneurs, innovation has a significant positive impact on life satisfaction, however, satisfaction with work–life balance is not affected by innovation for opportunity entrepreneurs. Job satisfaction plays a mediating role in the relationship between innovation and life satisfaction for both opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs. Job satisfaction has a complementary mediation effect on the relationship between innovation and life satisfaction for opportunity entrepreneurs, but only an indirect mediation effect on that relationship for necessity entrepreneurs. Innovation has less impact on satisfaction with work–life balance and job satisfaction than that of the rest entrepreneurs. For opportunity entrepreneurs, however, innovation has more impact on job satisfaction than for necessity entrepreneurs when compared to the rest of the entrepreneurs. Another angle to consider is the spatial effects of the innovation–wellbeing nexus. Florida (2004) coined the term “creative class” to refer to that educated class that territories and cities are fighting to attract. This class, he argues, is the key driver of innovation. The relation with well-being here is far from absent: first, because people in creative occupations have higher levels of well-being; and second, because the creative classes are more interested in the “people’s climate,” rather than the “business climate”. This means that at country, region, or city level, it is important to create the right conditions (a tolerant climate, open values) to attract this class. As a matter of fact, people in creative occupations are happier (Fujiwara et al., 2015), so the link between the creative class and happiness is rather strong. However, this also comes with a downside, as we shall see later in this book in the case of creative destruction. The attraction of this educated, rather wealthy social class has been associated with the rise of rents and the process of gentrification in the city centers to which large movements of this class have occurred (Howell, 2005). This means that there are no net gains in terms of subjective well bieng; there is, rather, a centrifugal movement which displaces the working- or lower-medium class populations to the benefit of the creative class. Therefore, studying the innovation– subjective wellbeing relation at the level of this population shows that well-being can be conducive to innovation and growth, but that the net effects at the general level are probably not so obvious.

References Aghion, P., & Howitt, P. (1998). Endogenous growth theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Amabile, T. M. (1997). Entrepreneurial creativity through motivational synergy. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 31(1), 18–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1997.tb00778.x. Anderson, A., Brossard, D., Scheufele, D., Xenos, M., & Ladwig, P. (2014). The “Nasty Effect:” Online incivility and risk perceptions of emerging technologies. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(3), 373–387, 1 April 2014. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12009.

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Audretsch, D., & Belitski, M. (2015). Is happiness conducive to entrepreneurship? Exploring subjective well-being – Entrepreneurship relationship across major European cities, Discussion Paper Number: CFE-2015-01, Henley Discussion Paper Series. Bakker, A. B. (2008). The work-related flow inventory: Construction and initial validation of the WOLF. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72, 400–414. Barth, E., Bryson, A., & Dale-Olsen, H. (2009). How does innovation affect worker well-being? CEP Discussion Papers, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. Biggi, G., & Giuliani, E. (2020). The noxious consequences of innovation: What do we know? Industry and Innovation, 28(1), 19–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2020.1726729. Binder, M. (2013). Innovativeness and subjective well-being. Social Indicators Research, 111(2), 561–578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0020-1. Binder, M. & Blankenberg, A. (2021). Self-employment and subjective well-being., in press: Zimmermann, K. F., Handbook of labor, human resources and population economics. Dordrecht: Springer. Binder, M., & Witt, U. (2019). As innovations drive economic growth, do they also raise wellbeing? In U. Witt & A. Chai (Eds.), Understanding economic change – Contributions to an evolutionary paradigm in economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chopra, A. (2013). The dark side of innovation. St. Johnsbury: Brigantine Media Eds. Christensen, C. M. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Clark, A., & Oswald, A. (1994). Unhappiness and unemployment. The Economic Journal, 104(424), 648–659. https://doi.org/10.2307/2234639. Coad, A., Nightingale, P., Stilgoec, J., & Vezzanid, A. (2020). Editorial: The dark side of innovation. Industry and Innovation, 28(1), 102–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2020. 1818555. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety: Experiencing flow in work and play. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Journal of Leisure Research, 24(1), 93–94. Dolan, P., & Metcalfe, R. (2012). The-relationship-between-innovation-and-subjective-wellbeing. Research Policy, 41(8), 1489–1498. Dolan, P., Metcalfe, R., Powdthavee, N., Beale, A. & Pritchard, D. (2008). Innovation and wellbeing (Innovation Index Working Paper – NESTA). Dosi, G. (2013). Innovation, evolution, and economics: Where we are and where we should go. In J. Fagerberg, B. R. Martin, & E. S. Andersen (Eds.), Innovation studies, evolution and future challenges (pp. 111–133). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dosi, G., Freeman, C., Nelson, R., Silverberg, G., & Soete, L. (1988). Technical change and economic theory. London: Pinter Publishers. Engelbrecht, H. J. (2014). A general model of the innovation – subjective well-being nexus. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 24(2), 377–397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-014-0343-y. Farzaneh, F., & Boyer, A. (2017). La motivation des employés à innover. Management & Avenir, 98(8), 191–210. Florida, R. (2004). The rise of the creative class. New York: Basic Books. Freeman, C. (1988). Japan: A new national system of innovation. In G. Dosi, C. Freeman, R. R. Nelson, G. Silverberg, & L. Soete (Eds.), Technical change and economic theory (pp. 330–348). London: Pinter Publishers. Fujiwara, D., Dolan, P., & Lawton, R. (2015). Creative occupations and subjective well-being. Nesta Paper. Accessed July 1, 2021, from https://www.nesta.org.uk/report/creative-occupa tions-andsubjective-wellbeing Gonzalez-Roma, V., & Hernandez, A. (2016). Uncovering the dark side of innovation: The influence of the number of innovations on work teams’ satisfaction and performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 25(4), 570–582. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1359432X.2016.1181057.

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Herring, H. (2004). The rebound effect and energy conservation. In C. Cleveland (Ed.), The Encyclopaedia of energy (pp. 411–423). Amsterdam: Academic. Howell, O. (2005). The “creative class” and the Gentrifying City: Skateboarding in Philadelphia’s Love Park. Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), 59(2), 32–42. Retrieved April 29, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40480609 Howson, P. (2021, February) Bitcoin isn’t getting greener: four environmental myths about cryptocurrency debunked, The Conversation. Huhtala, H., & Parzefall, M. R. (2007). A review of employee well-being and innovativeness: An opportunity for a mutual benefit. Creativity and Innovation Management, 16(3), 299–306. Jeannerat, H., Crevoisier, O., Brulé, G., & Suter, C. (2019). L’apport des sciences humaines et sociales à l’innovation en Suisse (“the contribution of social sciences and humanities to innovation in Switzerland”), Report Recherche et innovation en Suisse 2020. Jensen, K. W., Liu, Y., & Schøtt, T. (2017). Entrepreneurs innovation bringing job satisfaction, work – family balance, and life satisfaction: In China and around the world. International Journal of Innovation Studies, 1(4), 193–206. Jordan, S. R. (2014). The innovation imperative: An analysis of the ethics of the imperative to innovate in public sector service delivery. Public Management Review, 16(1), 67–89. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2013.790274. Korinek, A., & Stiglitz, J. E. (2017). Artificial intelligence and its implications for income distribution and unemployment (NBER Working Paper No. 24174). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau for Economic Research. Levesque, B. (2012). Social innovation and governance in public management systems: Limits of NPM and search for alternatives? Cahiers du CRISES ET1116. Levesque, B. (2014). La nouvelle valeur publique, une alternative à la nouvelle gestion pubique. In B. Lévesque, J. M. Fontan, & J. L. Klein (Eds.), L’innovation sociale. Les marches d’une construction théorique et pratique. Quebec: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Liu, J. & F. Munier (2019). Innovation and entrepreneurs’ subjective well-being. The mediation effect of job satisfaction and satisfaction with work-life balance (Working Papers, No. 2019–42). BETA CNRS. Lundvall, B. Å. (1992). National Systems of innovation: Towards a theory of innovation and interactive learning. London: Pinter Publishers. Meijer, I., & Thaens, M. (2020). The dark side of public innovation. Public Performance & Management Review, 44(1), 136–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/15309576.2020.1782954. Ménissier, T. (2021). Innovations, une enquête philosophique. Paris: Hermann Editeurs. Metcalfe, J. S. (2001). Institutions and progress. Industrial and Corporate Change, 10(3), 561–586. Mulgan, G. (2012). The theoretical foundations of social innovation. In A. Nicholls & A. Murdoch (Eds.), Social innovation: Blurring boundaries to reconfigure markets (pp. 33–65). Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan. Munier, F. (2013). Creativity and uncertainty in the act of work: The contribution of the viability theory. In T. Burger-Helmchen (Ed.), The economics of creativity, ideas, firms and markets. London: Routledge. Munier, F. (2016). Knowledge-based network: The key is the solution of dilemmas. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 12(1), 279–292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-016-0420-6. Munier, F. (2021). Innovation and subjective well-being. In D. Uzunidis (Ed.), Handbook of innovation. New-York: Wiley. Nelson, R. R. (1962). The rate and direction of inventive activity. Princeton, NJ: NBER, Princeton University Press. Nelson, R. R., & Winter, S. G. (1982). An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge, MA: Beknap Harvard. Pawin, R. (2018). Développer le bien-être des élèves grâce au flow: de la théorie à la pratique pédagogique. Sciences & Bonheur, 3, 71–92. Pickett, K., & Wilkinson, R. (2018). The inner level: How more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everybody’s wellbeing. London: Penguin Books.

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Romer, P. M. (1986). Increasing returns and long-run growth. Journal of Political Economy, 94(5), 1002–1103. https://doi.org/10.1086/261420. Savoie, D. (1994). Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney: In search on a new bureaucracy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Schot, J., & Steinmueller, E. (2018). Three frames for innovation policy: R&D, systems of innovation and transformative change. Research Policy, 47(9), 1554–1567. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.respol.2018.08.011. Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Capitalism, socialism and democracy (Vol. 36, pp. 132–145). New York: Harper & Row. Sherman, C., Randall, C., & Kauanui, S. (2016). Are you happy yet? Entrepreneurs’ subjective well-being. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 13(1), 7–23. https://doi.org/10. 1080/14766086.2015.1043575. Soete, L. (2013). Is innovation always good? In J. Fagerberg, B. R. Martin, & E. S. Andersen (Eds.), Innovation studies, evolution and future challenges (pp. 134–144). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stephan, U. (2018). Entrepreneurs’ mental health and well-being: A review and research agenda. Academy of Management Perspectives, 32(3), 290–322. Symposium. Tenner, E. (1997). Why things bite back. New York: Vintage Books. Unceta, A., & Barandiaran, X. (2019). Social innovation as an instrument for public innovation. UCJC Business and Society Review, 16(1), 100–125. Vittersø, J. (2004). Subjective well-being versus self-actualization: Using the flow-simplex to promote a conceptual clarification of subjective quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 65, 299–331. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SOCI.0000003910.26194.ef. Wiklund, J., Nikolaev, B., Shir, N., Foo, M.-D., & Bradley, S. (2019). Entrepreneurship and wellbeing: Past, present, and future. Journal of Business Venturing, 34(4), 579–588.

Chapter 3

Technologies: False Friends?

Abstract In this chapter, we study the relationship between technologies and happiness. We study the ambivalent side that technology can also induce, in the sense that it brings a lot of comfort and progress in many areas, but what about the possible impacts on the well-being of individuals. Keywords Technologies · Subjective well being · Ethics · Robots · Societal technology

The purpose of this chapter is to focus on the relationship between technology and happiness. The role of technology is now being debated because of its increased prevalence in everyday life: the idea of technology is increasingly surrounded by fears, and its impact on people’s happiness is being called into question. We are interested here in technologies other than ICT, since the following chapter will be devoted to that topic. Clearly, technological innovations have brought major progress in the quality of life and health of individuals. Innovation studies (Fagerberg et al., 2013) in the field of the economics of innovation and technological change highlight these outcomes, particularly in terms of growth and productivity. Our purpose here is to give a nuanced account of its contribution to well-being without denying these advances. The question of technology and its link with human well-being has been studied primarily by philosophers (Brey et al., 2012) and to a lesser extent by sociologists. We might mention here the famous question raised by Heidegger, the disenchantment of the world perceived by Weber, or more recently the idea of the technological bluff proposed by Ellul. The risk of alienation is emphasized by mechanization and the ubiquity of technique in our modern society. Our aim here, obviously, is to avoid falling into the trap of seeing technology as either dark or angelic, but rather to understand the social and human dimensions of technologies, which fall somewhere between the technological promise of a cornucopia and Luddism. Clearly, there remains the dichotomy between technological optimists and pessimists, and this separation induces the need for an interdisciplinary approach in order to fully understand the issues of technology as regards these social and human impacts. As © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_3

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remarked by Briggle and Mitcham (2012, p. 54), “Pessimists tend to side with Marshall McLuhan, who has written that humans are increasingly reduced to functioning as the ‘sex organs’ of the machine world” (McLuhan, 1967, p. 46). Optimists may side with Ray Kurzweil (2005), who foresees a near future when humans will live forever with transformed bodies and cyber minds.”1 As Postman (1993) argues, technology could be a loyal friend, a friend who makes life both easier and longer. But, precisely because of its cultural impact, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is like a friend who asks for trust and obedience, which we are inclined to proffer since this friend seems generous; yet for whom their remains a dark side, the gifts of this friend being not entirely free. As Postman writes (p. 7) “Stated in the most dramatic terms, the accusation can be made that the uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without a moral foundation. It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living. Technology, in sum, is both friend and enemy.” Again, it seems tempting to consider technology as a medium that can exacerbate human passions, both joy and sadness in Spinoza’s sense. Postman defends a form of humanism against the “technophile ideology,” which has entrusted to machines the task of redefining such primordial notions as ‘freedom’, ‘truth’, ‘intelligence’, ‘wisdom’, and so on; everything that constitutes culture. In this sense technology can destroy culture. A reflection on the ethics of robots (Boyer & Farzaneh, 2019) is useful in order to apprehend the issues related to the robotic substitution of humans. Boyer and Farzaneh highlight the importance of extending the ethics of robotics beyond the robot by including nanobots, bio-robots, or even cyborgs. Mobility, interactivity, communication, and autonomy are at the heart of the ethical relationship of robots to the individual. The effects of the substitution of man by machine is a source of fear, as we know that unemployment has a negative impact on the level of happiness of individuals. Frey and Osborne (2017) thus highlight the negative effects of digitization and robotics on employment, although other research has given a more moderate assessment of these impacts (Arntz et al., 2016; Nedelkoska & Quintini, 2018). More than seeking to find a uniform overall influence, it seems more sensible to distinguish this impact by reference to skill level. Arntz et al. (2019) thus show that those with higher qualifications are not likely to be heavily impacted. The literature seems to show that those with middle-ranking qualifications will ultimately be the most affected (Acemoglu & Autor, 2011; Goos et al., 2014; Michaels et al., 2014). In his book Mass Flourishing, Phelps (2013) shows that it is not the technological breakthrough that is important, but the innovation that results from it and its social, political, cultural, and behavioural impacts. As Hojman (2016, p. 5) highlights, “Good-life, flourishing-inducing innovation is a social phenomenon, qualitatively different from a technological breakthrough. [. . .] Often other innovations which are not technological breakthroughs, such as institutional, organizational, managerial,

1

Further discussion on Ray Kurzweil is provided in the chapter on transhumanism.

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social, cultural or political innovations are also needed. [. . .] There may be plenty of imagination and creativity everywhere, including Europe. What may be really missing, and badly needed, would be non-technological changes (institutional, political, organizational, managerial and so on), which would make it possible for imagination and creativity to be released.” Technology affects the institutional and organizational structure of an entity, as well as the interactions between individuals (Barley, 2015). In so doing, it potentially influences the well-being of individuals within that organization. In The Progress Paradox, Easterbrook (2003) masterfully illustrates the relationship that can appear between technological progress and subjective well-being. The result seems irrefutable. Despite technological advances since our grandparents’ generation, in many fields such as medicine, transportation, communication, biology, etc., it is surprising to find that individuals in Western countries today are less happy. Easterlin’s work (1974) also shows the discrepancy between the evolution of the growth rate of income/GDP and happiness as measured by life satisfaction. This prosperity resulting from technological progress does not have a positive impact on the well-being of individuals. One way to understand Easterlin’s paradox (1974) is to recall the phenomenon of “hedonistic adaptation” that induces individuals to appreciate a new positive technology for an ever-shorter period of time, where this psychological feature then prompts new purchases, manifesting in perpetual dissatisfaction. There are many inventions we could cite that influence subjective well-being. In order to circumscribe our study, we could say, following the terminology of Veenhoven (2009), that technology can influence subjective well-being by meeting (or failing to meet) either the needs or the wants of individuals. Concerning needs, there is a lot of hope among bioengineers concerning the creation of species of vegetables and fruits that could resist droughts, floods, insects, etc. Similarly, water could be collected in areas where before it was impossible (through desalination of sea water, etc.). In that sense, by enabling the poorest to have better access to food and water, one could increase subjective well-being by increasing access to basic needs. The same holds for shelter. An improvement in construction techniques could improve the life conditions of people in the most precarious positions of society and in low-income countries. Improvement in medicine has already brought a lot to industrialized and non-industrialized countries alike. There would be room to reduce infant mortality, maternal mortality, and increase longevity in general. These factors would lead to an increase in subjective well-being, provided they don’t generate more severe problems elsewhere (as, for instance, may be possible in the case of genetically modified species). As for the wants, we know that they tend to follow a comparative logic, and do not increase average subjective well-being, so there is no need to dig into this question any further. Workers tend to maintain a dual or ambivalent relationship to technology, as it typically represents at the same time a way to help them and a possible threat to their jobs. When the risk of unemployment is controlled for, technology can help humanity to pursue the hardest tasks; but where it leads to job destruction (Aghion et al.,

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2016) this will likely lead to lower subjective well-being, in particular if unemployment provisions are insufficient. To Rousseau’s romantic view that science can only lead to a form of decadence of the virtues, Spahn (2015) contrasts a more optimistic view wherein technology plays a positive role in the achievement of individual happiness. Certainly, it is accepted that technological progress improves the conditions of life (the external conditions), yet it does not, strictly speaking, have a consistent role as regards inner happiness, that form of happiness that relates to the virtues. A distinction can be drawn between the spectator of one’s happiness and the realizer of one’s happiness, corresponding to the distinction between personality and circumstances. The example used by Spahn (2015) illustrates this difference. Two people, Jim and John, want to go to the top of a mountain to enjoy the beautiful view. Jim buys the necessary climbing equipment and trains physically. He succeeds in his climb and enjoys the beautiful view: he is happy. John, on the contrary, buys a ticket to use a cable railway. This means of transport is based on a very sophisticated technology. Once at the top, he enjoys the view: he is happy. How can we distinguish the two individuals in terms of happiness? Referring to ancient philosophies, Greek and Christian, Jim’s happiness seems stronger in the sense of the virtues, in the sense of the pleasures of the soul versus physical pleasure. The idea that the triad of ethics, technology, and the achievement of happiness is jointly attainable should be retained here. In this respect, the modern philosophy of technology offers us the possibility of considering technology as contributing to a moral vision of a good life under the aegis of the concept of virtuous ethics. Logic echoes the determinants of positive psychology (in opposition to traditional psychology, only interested by illness and madness): rather than seeing only disaster and danger, it is also important to consider how technology can ultimately make us happier and more moral. The influence of technology at the societal effect is mainly due to the expansion of cities and of the means of communication. We can point, here, to the influence of cars and other modes of transport. If we survey the twentieth century, in particular from after the Second World War, the improvement of transportation can clearly be seen as leading to the expansion of cities and the development of suburbanization. According to Bartolini et al. (2017), this is one of the factors that explains why the increase in comfort has not led to higher subjective well-being, since trust in others and the availability of states of tranquillity was impacted by the new forms of urbanism. On the other hand, current developments in smart cities are promising to improve the quality and conviviality of our ways of life (Halegoua, 2020). It is convenient here to distinguish the green city, the smart city, and also the new notion of the happy city—the latter being the concept of a city that considers the emotional infrastructure as paramount. Cities comprise a combination of people and infrastructure, and a well-developed system would be able to ensure well-being, comfort, and the exchange of ideas and thoughts, thus creating a healthy emotional infrastructure. The happy city would of course be similar to the green city, smart city, and other concepts of a good city: however, there is a slight difference between them, the

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happy city being based on emotional connection and collective joy (Ballas, 2013; Trilok, 2019). The ethical question of new technologies allows us to shed light on the technological impact on individual and societal well-being. This question is also relevant in the case of human genetic improvement. Clearly, these advances hold the promise of reducing the burden of disease. Nevertheless, an ethical question arises. In this regard, the notion of positional goods or conspicuous consumption would be useful as a means to illuminate the debate (see Veblen, 1998, Franck, 1999). As long as rational choice is not individualistic and responds to an ethic of collective goods, these genetic technologies can be a source of individual and societal well-being. We find here the major challenge of vaccination against COVID, vaccination being an act that allows one to protect oneself while at the same time being a collective act for the well-being of the community. This issue of the dichotomy between positional and relational goods is also developed by Bruni (2012) in a reflection on the good life and technology. What Bruni could write in 2012 (p. 128) now seems simply astounding when we reflect on what millions of people around the world are experiencing due to the COVID pandemic: Just imagine a city without noisy and quarrelsome apartments, in which each family has its own house acoustically and visually isolated from others such that no neighbor can disturb another; where the few remaining skyscrapers are constructed in such a way so as to avoid all encounters on the stairs or on the landings; where office and workplace communications are solely via e-mail, or by Skype for the more delicate decisions; where all formerly common spaces, from parks to neighborhoods, have been parceled up and privatized, and everyone protects his or her own little piece of the city; where by simple e-mail we can order groceries with home delivery without having to get out and lose precious time; where the interactive media have become so sophisticated that we feel in the company of others all day long, although we spend more time alone in front of the computer and the television; where even college courses are delivered at home via the Internet, with highly trained virtual instructors that can follow us personally from anywhere in the world, with no need whatsoever for faceto-face encounter.

Bruni (2012) does indeed put forward an interesting idea, in the sense that technological progress has been based ultimately on a market-technical logic that has, perhaps, allowed more individual freedom and equity in modern societies, but that this has undoubtedly been to the detriment of fraternity, an ontological element of the human being and source of happiness. “And without hugs we die” (Bruni, 2012, p. 145). If we now consider the effects of technologies on the environment (which in turns influences subjective well-being), one can see that they tend to be uniformly negative. For the simple reason that we as a society keep treating the nature as the “environment” (i.e., what surrounds human beings), it becomes a reservoir for the effluence of humanity and most of the technological breakthroughs that are made come at an environmental cost. We can refer to the work of Chevance et al. (2020), which clearly shows that digital consumption is not sustainable from an ecological point of view. In this respect, the SHIFT project (2019) warns against the unbridled use of online videos and the carbon impact that this entails.

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References Acemoglu, D., & Autor, D. (2011). Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for employment and earnings. In O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (Eds.), Handbook of labor economics (Vol. 4, Chapter 12, 1st ed., pp. 1043–1171). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Aghion, P., Akcigit, U., Deaton, A., & Roulet, A. (2016). Creative destruction and subjective wellbeing. The American Economic Review, 106(12), 3869–3897. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer. 20150338. Arntz, M., Gregory, T., & Zierahn, U., (2016). The risk of automation for jobs in OECD countries: A comparative analysis (OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 189). OECD Publishing. Arntz, M., Gregory, T., & Zierahn, U., (2019). Digitalization and the future of work: Macroeconomic consequences (IZA Discussion Papers 12428). Ballas, D. (2013). What makes a ‘happy city’? Cities, 32(1), S39–S50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cities.2013.04.009. Barley, S. R. (2015). Why the internet makes buying a car less loathsome: How technologies change role relations. Academy of Management Discoveries, 1, 5–35. Bartolini, S., Mikucka, M., & Sarracino, F. (2017). Money, trust and happiness in transition countries: Evidence from time series. Social Indicators Research, 130(1), 87–106. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11205-015-1130-3. Boyer, A., & Farzaneh, F. (2019). Vers une éthique de la robotique (“Towards an ethic of robotics”). Question(s) de Management, 2(24), 67–84. Brey, P., Briggle, A., & Spence, E. (2012). The good life in a technological age. New-York: Routledge. Briggle, A., & Mitcham, C. (2012). Theorizing technology. In P. Brey, A. Briggle, & E. Spence (Eds.), The good life in a technological age. London: Routledge. Bruni, L. (2012). The ambivalence of the good life: Happiness, economics, technology, and relational goods. In P. Brey, A. Adam Briggle, & E. Spence (Eds.), The good life in a technological age. London: Routledge. Chevance, G., Hekler, E., Efoui-Hess, M., Godino, J., Golaszewski, N., Gualtieri, L., Krause, A., Marrauld, L., Nebeker, C., Perski, O., Simons, D., Taylor, J., & Paquito, B. (2020). Digital health at the age of the Anthropocene. The Lancet, 2(6), E290–E291. Easterbrook, G. (2003). The Progress paradox: How life gets better while people feel worse. New York: Random House. Easterlin, R. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In R. David & R. Reder (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz. New York: Academic. Fagerberg, J., Martin, B., & Andersen, E. (2013). Innovation studies – Evolution and future challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Franck, R. (1999). Luxury fever – Weighing the cost of excess. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2017). The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, 254–280. Goos, M., Manning, A., & Salomons, A. (2014). Explaining job polarization: Routine-biased technological change and offshoring. American Economic Review, 104(8), 2509–2526. Halegoua, G. (2020). Smart cities. Boston, MA: The MIT Press. Hojman, D. E. (2016). Getting innovation right: The key to happiness and flourishing? Homo Oecon, 33, 311–316. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-016-0016-1. Kurzweil, R. (2005). The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. New York: Viking. McLuhan, M. (1967). Understanding media: The extensions of man. London: Sphere Books. Michaels, G., Ashwini, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2014). Has ICT polarized skill demand? Evidence from eleven countries over 25 years. Review of Economics and Statistics, 96(1), 60–77. https:// doi.org/10.1162/REST_a_00366.

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Nedelkoska, L., & Quintini, G. (2018). Automation, skills use and training OECD social, employment and migration (Working Papers 202), OECD. Phelps, E. (2013). Mass flourishing: How grassroots innovation created jobs, challenge, and change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Vintage Books. SHIFT. (2019). https://theshiftproject.org Spahn, A. (2015). Can technology make us happy? : Ethics, spectator’s happiness and the value of achievement. In J. H. Søraker, J.-W. Rijt, J. van der Boer, P.-H. Wong, & P. Breij (Eds.), Wellbeing in contemporary society (pp. 93–113). (Happiness Studies Book Series)). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06459-8_6. Trilok, K. (2019). Concept of Happy City: The smart cities of the future. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3314531. Veblen, T. (1998). The theory of the leisure class. New York: Prometheus Books. (Originally published 1899). Veenhoven, R. (2009). How do we assess how happy we are? Tenets, implications and tenability of three theories. In A. Dutt & B. Radcliff (Eds.), Happiness, economics and politics. New York: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Chapter 4

ICT: “Alone Together”?

Abstract In this chapter, we propose a focus on a particular technology that invades more and more our lives: ICT. The effects of ICT use are well documented. A review of the main empirical results is presented to show that especially the use that matters in terms of impact on happiness. Keywords Information and communication technology · Subjective well being · Social media · Smartphone · Attention

Are we ‘alone together as suggested by Turkle (2012) and finally not so happy when we use ICT? It is quite clear that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) greatly influences our individual lives, our social relationships, and our work. The impact of ICT is well documented, with a focus on the internet, the smart phone, social networks, Big Data, surveillance, etc. In what follows, after a review of the empirical literature on these issues, we broaden the spectrum of analysis to include questions such as the economy of attention and distraction. We have also to think issues related to the attempts to mitigate the social media companies’ profiting from outrage, the profusion of hatred, cyberbullying, “fear of missing out” (FOMO) addiction, and anxiety, with the concomitant risk of diminished happiness and harm to democracy (Wadhwa & Salkever, 2018). In economic terms, ICTs have an overall positive impact on economic growth and productivity (Choi et al., 2009; Litan & Rivlin, 2001) and particularly on the development of poorer countries (Aker & Mbiti, 2010). We are no longer really in the Solow paradox of the late 1980s, according to which there are computers everywhere except in statistics. Statistical advances allow for a refinement of the observation. Ganju et al. (2016) postulate that the effects of ICT are not limited to productivity or GDP, but can also impact the welfare of a country by helping individuals to develop social exchange and social equality, by providing more information on health and education and by enhancing trade. They show that not all countries that have increased their welfare by using ICTs have done so in the same way. Countries that are less economically developed increase their welfare mainly through the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_4

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expansion of the use of cell phones, while more economically developed countries increase their welfare regardless of ICT. Work by Graham and Nikolova (2012) shows that ICTs impact productivity, development, and economic outcomes everywhere. Moreover, access to technology is positive for overall welfare, but with diminishing marginal effects. Evidence of increased stress and anger, including among people for whom access to technology is relatively recent, is also observed: hence the duality of technology can also be observed in this case. Overall, the development process induces high levels of frustration at an individual level, but increasing levels of well-being in the long run. The outputs of the TIK research center in Oslo are important for understanding the impact of ICT on well-being, based on the project HAPPY—Responsible Innovation and Happiness: A New Approach to the Effects of ICTs (2015). Castellacci and Tveito (2018) propose an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to analyze the positive effects and potential risks of the widespread use of ICT, distinguishing the different mechanisms that can have an effect on well-being, time saving, creation of new activities, easy access to information, communication tools. The influence of use on well-being depends on structural factors linked to the user’s personality. It is therefore the interaction between people’s activities in distinct areas of life (private life, social life, consumption, work, external environment) and their personal characteristics (psychology, capabilities, culture, and beliefs) that explains why the use of ICT has greater positive effects for some individuals and social groups than for others. In connection with this point, the COVID crisis has seen an upsurge in remote working thanks to ICT technologies. The effects depended heavily on the type of job (manual, intellectual), the housing conditions of the remote workers (small, large), and the household structure (single, couple, couple with children, single-parent families). Depending on these conditions and on individual preferences, conditions went from “heaven” (highly qualified workers who didn’t have to travel anymore and who enjoyed a peaceful time) to “hell” (single parents having to take care of children while at the same time working for a high-pressure job). It became clear that the relation that people had to ICT was significantly revelatory of their individual situations. Despite individual differences, many people have experienced a lack of separation between the different spheres of their lives, and an increased mental load due to repeated online conversations, a phenomenon known as “Zoom fatigue” (Bailenson, 2021). The relation between subjective well being and internet use is also dependent on personalities. Studies show that extraverts use social media to complement their in-person social networks, whereas introverts tend to substitute face-to-face interactions for virtual ones (Lee et al., 2011; Sabatini & Sarracino, 2017). But it turns out that virtual friends are not real friends, at least in the philosophical sense proposed by Aristotle (Froding & Peterson, 2012; Kaliarnta, 2016). Arampatzi et al. (2018) show also that social media do not replace social relationships in real life and, at most, complement them. Based on the literature, Castellacci and Tveito (2018) select six factors that influence job satisfaction: income, education, type of occupation, autonomy, time

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pressure, and social interactions. The results show that the use of the internet leads to an increase in job satisfaction insofar as the internet effectively provides access to useful data and information. It is necessary to qualify this, however: for the internet seems to play a positive role in mediating income and job satisfaction based on the role of positive social comparisons at the top of the pyramid and the opportunities offered thereby. A similar result is found for education, in the sense that a higher level of skill also allows easier and more sophisticated access to data and information on the internet. Viñas Bardolet et al. (2018) provide similar results as regards knowledge workers and job satisfaction. In this respect, we can mention the importance of the difference between information and knowledge (Cohendet et al., 1999), a distinction that would undoubtedly be useful to analyse as regards its role on the well-being of individuals in their use of the internet. Type of occupation also plays a differential role on the impact of internet use at work: basically, white-collar workers are happier than blue-collar workers in their internet use. Autonomy is also positively correlated with internet use, the spectrum of freedom obviously being wider in this case, especially at the spatial level. Time pressure and social interactions are also positively impacted by internet use. For the second, it is mainly the management support and the exchange of information that are important. It is thus also shown, finally, that work–life balance becomes more balanced, in the sense that the time saving provided by the internet offers more time for other occupations. Like many factors influencing subjective well being, the internet (at work or at home) plays a dual role (Kraut et al., 1998). It can, at the same time, increase the opportunities to meet people and stay in touch with them, while also having downside effects such as replacing face-to-face meetings, or providing avoidance strategies to groups of people who prefer to stay online with their community (such as teenagers, videogame players). Another technology that immediately comes to mind here is the smartphone, being ubiquitous and crystallizing both love and hatred. What can be said about its impact on the well-being of individuals? In general terms, the use of the internet and its impact on well-being really depends on the pattern of its use, as well as on the age of the user. In brief, it seems that the younger generations are more addicted and also more negatively influenced by this use, especially concerning social networks. Veenhoven and Vogelaar (2019), for instance, show that the relationship between the internet and happiness differs by internet usage and across different age groups. Internet access is positively related to happiness because such access provides information, but time spent on the internet also has a negative impact. Younger people (teens and young adults) tend to be less happy the more they use the internet, while older people (65+) benefit from internet access. The question of the impact of cell phones on well-being became important when the phone became “smart” by integrating the possibility of accessing the internet, thus adding many applications and sources of information. Empirical research on the relationship between smart phone use and subjective well-being is equivocal (Palm, 2020). Again, it is not the technology that is responsible for the change in well-being but the use of it. Once again, we see a duality emerging: the smartphone offers

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infinite possibilities, but at the same time creates dependencies, in the worst case leaving people enslaved to this technology (Stanca, 2016). Kavetsos and Koutroumpis (2011) and Chan (2015) indicate that the smartphone can augment subjective well-being in particular because it promotes social relationships in the sense of keeping in touch in all circumstances and exchanging on different topics in different ways, via messaging, social networks, and the use of photos and emojis (Campbell, 2005; Ling, 2012). Moreover, information and services on the move are a source of well-being, whether for personal services or entertainment (Castellacci & Tveito, 2018), in the sense that these services can also be seen to correspond to “the principle of least effort,” as described by Palm (2020) referring to Dunn and Dwyer (2018). In short, when its use is balanced, the smartphone simplifies life and brings happiness. Yet with the increased use of modern technologies, digital overuse has been proven to be related to lower subjective well being in the Swiss context (Büchi et al., 2019). Individuals who are able to make the best of the new technologies are the ones who manage to minimize the downsides (Salo et al., 2019). Another way to understand the impact of the smartphone on individual happiness is to consider the multiple applications oriented towards personal development. Even if this is not a matter of the smartphone as a technology per se, but more the applications inherent to it, it is interesting to observe the emotions related to these applications. The findings (Howells et al., 2014) support the viability of smartphonebased interventions to significantly improve elements of well-being, highlighting the importance of app content and the role of person–activity fit. This point concerns also online shopping and sustainable consumption (Guillen-Royo, 2019, 2020). But there is also a dark side to this technology, and once again it depends on the use that is made of it (Kushlev et al. 2019; Misra et al., 2014; Rotondi et al., 2017). As Palm (2020) reminds us, Misra et al. (2014) and Sbarra et al. (2019) have studied the impact of this device on face-to-face social interactions and found adverse implications. From our perspective, this brings us to the heart of our first issue regarding the use of smartphone technology and its impact on well-being, the problem known as the “attention economy.” In our view, this focus on attention is likely to be a key factor in explaining the negative impact of the smartphone on subjective well-being in both the short and long term. This approach is not new. The term “attention economy” was proposed by Simon (1994), who argued that attention is the “bottleneck of human thought” that limits both what we can perceive in stimulating environments and what we can do. He also highlighted the idea that more information engenders a poverty of attention, suggesting that multitasking is a myth, and that ultimately it induces negative effects. In this respect, rather than talking about the economy of information and knowledge, it would be more appropriate to talk about attention, because information and knowledge are not scarce, whereas attention is; and because attention, furthermore, is becoming a commodity that digital companies are trying to capture. Put differently, the attention economy makes us slaves of our screens, causing a negative impact on our well-being and a decrease in the number of our face-to-face

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social interactions. It is undoubtedly at this level that the dark side of ICT is prevalent. Attention is not synonymous with concentration; its meaning goes beyond that. Attention is more about showing interest, or being interested in a person or a thing. Attention is to be interested, and thus to give value. Every individual needs attention, which is also a form of recognition (Munier, 2018). Attention, in other words, is affection; and it can also refer to the concept of resonance, as we will see later in this book. The literature shows that it is primarily the social networks that try to capture attention, and that they do this via subscriptions, followers, likes, and friends, based always on the underlying engine of social comparison; in this respect, they are able to generate attention-capturing spirals whose effect is quite strong. It has been proven that increased access to the internet has an impact on individual position, understood as the extent to which subjective well-being is influenced by relative income rather than absolute income (Lohmann, 2015): this is because new technologies provide new virtual reference points to compare with. This can appear as an addiction, because all this behaviour is driven by, and thus explained by, a logic of reward connected to a secretion of dopamine in the brain. Harcourt (2014) has probably best set out this idea that the internet, and social networks in particular, represent a trap wherein our unlimited desires to access everything and expose our private data come at the cost of total surveillance. Digital companies have well understood this logic, and this online phenomenon of “voluntary servitude” has negative effects for individual and collective happiness, with repercussions on democracy and freedom. Another sensitive point that can influence the well-being of individuals is, of course, the uncivil discourse and hatred that can be found online (Anderson et al., 2014), the fake news (Acerbi, 2019), and the digital dumbing down of individuals (Desmurget, 2019). It is interesting and instructive to see that digital companies themselves understand these harmful effects and use them to further addict individuals (Center for Humane Technology). This, then, is what is at stake in our modern digital societies, and raises questions that we will take up in the last part of this book.

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Büchi, M., Noemi Festic, N., & Latzer, M. (2019). Digital overuse and subjective well-being in a digitized society. Social Media + Society, 2019, 1–12. Campbell, N. (2005). Suspect technologies: Scrutinizing the intersection of science, technology, and policy. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 30(3), 374–402. Castellacci, F., & Tveito, V. (2018). Internet use and well-being: A survey and a theoretical framework. Research Policy, 47(1), 308–325. Chan, M. (2015). Mobile phones and the good life: Examining the relationships among mobile use, social capital and subjective well-being. New Media & Society, 17, 96–113. Choi, C., Yi, H., & Myung. (2009). The effect of the internet on economic growth: Evidence from cross-country panel data. Economics Letters, 105(1), 39–41. Cohendet, P., Kern, F., Mehmanpazir, M., & Munier, F. (1999). Knowledge coordination, competence creation and integrated networks in globalized firms. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 23(2), 225–241. Desmurget, M. (2019). La Fabrique du crétin digital, Les dangers des écrans pour nos enfants. Paris: Le Seuil. Dunn, E., & Dwyer, R. J. (2018). Technology and the future of happiness. In J. P. Forgas & R. F. Baumeister (Eds.), The social psychology of living well. New York: Routledge. Froding, B., & Peterson, M. (2012). Why virtual friendship is no genuine friendship. Ethics and Information Technology, 14, 201–207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9284-4. Ganju, K., Banker, R., & Pavlou, P. (2016). Does information and communication technology lead to the well-being of nations? A country-level empirical investigation. MIS Quarterly, 40(2), 417–430. Graham, C., & Nikolova, M. (2012, December). Does access to information technology make people happier? Insights from well-being surveys from around the world (Global economy & Development, Working Paper 53). Guillen-Royo, M. (2019). Sustainable consumption and wellbeing: Does on-line shopping matter? Journal of Cleaner Production, 229, 1112–1124. Guillen-Royo, M. (2020). Applying the fundamental human needs approach to sustainable consumption corridors: Participatory workshops involving information andcommunication technologies. Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. ISSN 1548-7733, 16(1), S114–S127. Harcourt, B. (2014). Digital security in the expository society: Spectacle, surveillance, and exhibition in the neoliberal age of big data. APSA, no. 14-404. Available at https://scholarship.law. columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1865 Howells, A., Ivtzan, I., & Eiroa-Orosa, F. J. (2014). Putting the ‘app’ in happiness: A randomised controlled trial of a smartphone-based mindfulness intervention to enhance wellbeing. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17, 163–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9589-1. Kaliarnta, S. (2016). Using Aristotle’s theory of friendship to classify online friendships: A critical counterview. Ethics and Information Technology, 18, 65–79. Kavetsos, G., & Koutroumpis, P. (2011). Technological affluence and subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(5), 742–753. Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukophadhyay, T., & Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological wellbeing? American Psychologist, 53(9), 1017–1031. Kushlev, K., Dwyer, R., & Dunn, E. W. (2019). The social price of constant connectivity: Smartphones impose subtle costs on well-being. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(4), 347–352. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419847200. Lee, G., Lee, J., & Kwon, S. (2011). Use of social-networking sites and subjective well-being: A study in South Korea. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 14(3), 151–155. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2009.0382. Ling, R. (2012). Taken for grantedness: The embedding of mobile communication into society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Litan, R. E., & Rivlin, A. M. (2001). Projecting the economic impact of the internet. The American Economic Review, 91(2), 313–317.

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Lohmann, S. (2015). Information technologies and subjective well-being: Does the internet raise material aspirations? Oxford Economic Papers, 67(3), 740–759. Misra, S., Cheng, L., Genevie, J., & Yuan, M. (2014). The iPhone effect: The quality of in-person social interactions in the presence of Mobile devices. Environment and Behavior, 48(2), 275–298. Munier, F. (2018). The self and the others – Recognition and subjective well-being: Some empirical evidences. In R. Ege & H. Ingersheim (Eds.), The individual and the other in economic thought. New York: Routledge. Palm, A., (2020). Mobile phone use and subjective well-being: Implications for responsible research and innovation (Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20200823). Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo. Rotondi, V., Stanca, L., & Tomasuolo, M. (2017). Connecting alone: Smartphone use, quality of social interactions and well-being. Journal of Economic Psychology, 63(C), 17–26. Sabatini, F., & Sarracino, F. (2017). Online networks and subjective well-being. Kyklos, 70(3), 456–480. Salo, M., Pirkkalainen, H., & Koskelainen, T. (2019). Technostress and social networking services: Explaining users’ concentration, sleep, identity, and social relation problems. Information Systems Journal, 29(2), 408–435. Sbarra, D., Briskin, J., & Slatcher, R. (2019). Smartphones and close relationships; the case for an evolutionary mismatch. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(4), 596–618. Simon, H. A. (1994). The bottleneck of attention: Connecting thought with motivation. In W. D. Spaulding (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation Integrative views of motivation, cognition, and emotion (Vol. 41, pp. 1–21). University of Nebraska Press. Stanca, L. (2016). Happiness and new media. In L. Bruni & P. L. Porta (Eds.), Happiness and quality of life. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Turkle, S. (2012). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each. New York: Basic Books. Veenhoven, R., & Vogelaar, R. (2019). Does the internet make us happier? A research synthesis using an online findings (EHERO Working Paper 2019-2). Viñas Bardolet, C., Sallent, T., & Guillen-Royo, J. (2018). Knowledge workers and job satisfaction: Evidence from Europe. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 11, 1–2. Wadhwa, V., & Salkever, A. (2018). Your happiness was hacked: Why tech is winning the Battle to control your brain--and how to fight Back. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Chapter 5

Social Innovation as a Vector for a Good Life

Abstract In this chapter, we study a type of innovation that seems to take into consideration at least the human dimension and also to some extent the impacts on the well-being of individuals, organizations and societies. Keywords Social · Good life · Ecology · Non-technological innovation · Managerial innovation · Capabilities

Among the various classifications of innovation, a common one distinguishes technological from non-technological innovation (see, e.g., OECD, 2011). Technological innovation refers to the use of new devices or platforms that address or create new uses vis-à-vis the previous situation. Non-technological innovation refers to other forms of innovation such as cultural or social innovation; although these can also be supported by technologies, their main difference compared to previous systems is related primarily to the immaterial or social world. Howaldt and Schwarz (2010) remark that “the substantive distinction between social and technical innovations can be found in their immaterial intangible structure,” before specifying that “the innovation does not occur in the medium of technical artifact but at the level of social practice.” In that sense, it is related to a political discourse (Von Jacobi et al., 2017). Among the non-technological forms of innovation, social innovation refers to a new way of meeting societal demands, whether expressed or latent, such as helping migrants, improving the quality of the environment, or simply making everyday life better. A common definition of social innovation is: “a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals” (Phills et al., 2008, p. 39). Depending on definitions and conceptualizations, social innovations are either restricted to commercial applications or can also include non-commercial applications (see Policy Research Initiative 2010; for a review see Edwards and Wallace 2017). At a meta-level, social innovation has been defined “in terms of both ends (new solutions to societal problems) and means (the new forms of social organization needed to ensure their delivery)” (EC October, 2010, p. 29). This means that the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_5

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social fabric is seen both as a problem to be solved and as a resource into which one can tap. The main difference with other forms of innovation, and in particular techno-productive innovation, is its inherent imbrication of the techno and the social. By considering theories such as the Actor Network Theory (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987), some authors have observed that the construction of a mock-up or a product participates in the structuring of the network via the mobilization of actors and the institutionalization of their relations (Vinck, 1999). More than a process of the diffusion of a technological breakthrough into the social realm (as in the “cultural lag” of Ogburn, 1922), social innovation looks more like an iterative techno-social process through which a new network and a solution jointly arise. As expressed by Nicholls and Murdock (2012): “Social innovation is, thus, simultaneously the production of new ideas and new structures [. . .] and a process of recontextualization within socially (re)constructed norms of the public good, justice, and equity” (Nicholls & Murdock, 2012, p.2, our emphasis). To grasp this imbrication, social innovation requires that scholars leave behind the functionalist view. Social innovation fails to fit into such a rigid unidimensional frame, because “‘function’ is precisely what the ‘usefulness’ criterion that haunts the organizational creativity literature always imposes” (de Cock, 2016, p. 250). Moulaert et al. (2013) consider that “social innovation research starts from a social ontology that considers ‘society’ not as a pre-given social reality [. . .] but as a horizon of action defined by one or more competing ‘social imaginaries’.” In that sense, some authors have looked at social innovation not as a new or another type of innovation, but rather as a new paradigm of innovation, in line with Latour’s Actor Network Theory (see, e.g., Michelsen, 2009, Degelsegger & Kesselring, 2012). Precisely due to its social nature, one can assume that, among the various forms of innovation, social innovation is the most related to subjective well-being (SWB), precisely because it is “often prompted by unhappiness, disappointment, or anger” (Mulgan, 2012, p. 36). Dawson and Daniel (2010) go in the same direction: “social innovations are triggered by an interest in improving the well-being of people in society.” As noted by Engelbrecht (2014), the link between social innovation and SWB is more “intuitive” than the link between technoproductive innovation and SWB. If one moves away from linear models of innovation (see Kline, 1985) to embrace social innovation as a process, it is possible to look at the “4 I” process model of Hochgerner (2013) (ideation, intervention, implementation, and impact) as an example of the influences of social innovation on well-being. According to Engelbrecht, all of these different steps have an influence on SWB. According to some scholars, the role of social innovation is explicitly to convey and shape the quality of life, as it “represents new ideas with the potential to improve either the macro quality of life or the quantity of life” (Ville & Pol, 2008). The 2011 report of the Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA) on social innovation in the EU highlights the delivering of “value that is less concerned with profit and more with issues such as quality of life, solidarity and well-being” (p. 33). To verify whether social innovation is conducive of innovation, we can dig into the different scales to observe the links between innovation and well-being at the level of the individual, work, environment, or society as a whole.

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If one looks at it from the perspective of the individual, social innovation can be seen as one way to empower people. In that sense, social innovation can create new options for individuals: in other words, it is “capacity-building” (Moulaert et al., 2005, p. 1972). What has been described as empowerment, locus of control, or control on one’s environment, is key to individuals’ well-being. The capabilities approach situates the control over one’s environment as central. According to Nussbaum (2000, 2011), this right is simultaneously political (being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association) and material (being able to hold property in the form of both land and moveable goods; having property rights on an equal basis with others; having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others; having freedom from unwarranted search and seizure). This feeling of control is also present in eudaimonic well-being, in a form sometimes known as environmental mastery (Ryff, 1989). This has also been related empirically with SWB. In that sense, being empowered can increase an individual’s agency, which is directly linked to SWB (Brulé & Veenhoven, 2014; Verme, 2009). The greater feeling of control is one of the reasons why the self-employed tend to derive more meaning and vitality from their work than wage-employees (see, e.g., Stephan et al., 2020). Whether it is a constituent of human dignity or a facilitator of well-being, having some control over one’s environment seems to mean, in its simplest form, being listened to, being heard, and having one’s voice count. This is a reason why democratic regimes foster better well-being than other forms of political regime (Frey & Stutzer, 2002). Social innovation also has an important role to play in increasing environmental mastery. By allowing people to contribute to defining and shaping their own political, institutional, and physical environment, social innovation is a way for individuals and citizens to be in the driver’s seat—this being the seat in which people often tend to be happy. Another way to see this is to reflect that individuals multiply and combine their identities, seeking to be not only a family member, a citizen, and a professional, but rather to be contributors to several communities, whether online or offline. This contribution to multiple communities is, in a way, what de Tocqueville saw when he arrived in the United States, something that has been partly lost since the 1960s (Bartolini, 2009). This form of social innovation can enter into multiple spheres, as we detail below in the case of the workplace, institutions, and the environment. Managerial innovation has been defined in many different ways, some of which are collected and analysed in Damanpour & Aravind, 2012. Kimberly (1981) introduced the term to acknowledge the non-technological forms of innovation (Birkinshaw et al., 2008) and to take into account new forms of management, new organizational structures, and new ways of creating public value. Damanpour and Aravind (2012) distinguish three forms of managerial innovation: organizational, administrative, and management. Although managerial innovation might seem appealing, its actual effects on the well-being of employees seem to be negative, particularly in non-unionized sectors (Barth et al., 2009): this is because managerial innovation is perceived by the workers as a source of uncertainty and possible unfairness. The authors find that employees who engage in collective bargaining

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are less affected by managerial innovation. For some authors, this is because managerial innovation is mostly a discourse that is disembodied from reality (see, e.g., Knights & McCabe, 2002); it has also been depicted as the Trojan Horse of neoliberalism (see, e.g., Newfield, 2019). Some authors have considered the workplace as a key site for social innovation (see, e.g., Totterdill et al., 2012). Although it is a domain often associated with constraints on individuals (stress, hierarchy, lack of sense), resulting sometimes in undesirable outcomes (burn out, layoffs, depression), one can also see it as a place of constant invention and reinvention. As a possible place for social innovation, it can also lead to happiness (Oeij et al., 2012; Pot et al., 2016). This can go in both ways, with happier people being more productive (as we saw earlier) as well as people working on social innovation being happier. For instance, Donegani et al. (2012) find that workers in the non-profit sector are happier with their jobs. Meaning as well as creativity can be mediated by the workplace, as noted by Engelbrecht; and we have already seen that entrepreneurs were happier and had more vitality than wage employees (Stephan et al., 2020). For a complete picture, the relation between social innovation and SWB needs to take into account broader societal elements such as values, policies, and institutions (see, e.g., Lundvall, 1992). This would take us beyond the scope of this book, but one could include social capital, trust in institutions, quality of life in cities, etc. There are many factors that could enter the social innovation–SWB nexus, influencing (or being influenced by) the relation either directly or indirectly (see, e.g., Jeannerat et al., 2019). Furthermore, living in a time of environmental problems, the (social) innovation– SWB nexus should also encompass environmental problems. Many of these problems fall within the scope of social entrepreneurs who dedicate time and ideas to solving current ecological issues in order to respond to market and government failures (Dayson, 2017). The links between social innovation and SWB are plural in that sense, with happier people caring more about the planet all things considered (see, e.g., Wang & Kang, 2019) and, at the same time, richer and more economically advanced societies have more impact on the environment. Finally, one could also look at the other direction of the SWB–SI nexus, which would concern the sense in which happiness itself is a form of social innovation. The development of initiatives and indexes by national and institutional actors reflect attempts to establish a closer dialogue with civil society on this issue (Bhutan Gross National Happiness, OECD Better Life Index, etc.). Happiness surveys have been seen as “the launching pad to generate a high level of citizen participation in collective discussions and concerted action, by means of both ‘top-down’ official government policy, and ‘bottom-up’ social mobilization” (O’Donnell, 2013, p. 102).

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References Barth, E., Bryson, A., & Dale-Olsen, H. (2009). How does innovation affect worker well-being? (CEP Discussion Papers). Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. Bartolini, S. (2009). Manifesto for happiness: Shifting society from money to wellbeing (pp. 2–69). Roma: CEPS/INSTEAD. Source: Book: Partial English translation of “Manifesto per la Felicità”. BEPA. (2011). Empowering people, driving change: Social innovation in the European Union. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Birkinshaw, J., Hamel, G., & Mol, M. (2008). Management innovation. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 825–845. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2008.34421969. Brulé, G., & Veenhoven, R. (2014). Freedom and happiness in nations. Why the Finns are happier than the French. Psychology of well-being: Theory Research and Practice, 4, 17. http://www. psywb.com/content/4/1/17. Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fisherman of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action, and belief: A new sociology of knowledge (pp. 196–223). London: Routledge. Damanpour, F., & Aravind, D. (2012). Managerial innovation: Conceptions, processes and antecedents. Management and Organization Review, 8(2), 423–454. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17408784.2011.00233.x. Dawson, P. M., & Daniel, L. (2010). Understanding social innovation: A provisional framework. International Journal of Technology Management, 51(1), 9–12. Dayson, C. (2017). Evaluating social innovations and their contribution to social value: The benefits of a ‘blended value’ approach. Policy and Politics, 45(3), 395–411. https://doi.org/10.1332/ 030557316X14564838832035. de Cock, C. (2016). From creativity to imagination with Cornelius Castoriadis. In T. Beyes, C. Steyaert, & M. Parker (Eds.), Routledge companion to reinventing management education (pp. 234–248). London: Routledge. Degelsegger, A., & Kesselring, A. (2012). Do non-humans make a difference? The actor-networktheory and the social innovation paradigm. In H. W. Franz, J. Hochgerner, & J. Howaldt (Eds.), Challenge social innovation. Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-328794_4. Donegani, P., McKay, C., & Moro, D. (2012). A dimming of the ‘warm glow’? Are non-profit workers in the UK still more satisfied with their jobs than other workers? In A. Bryson (Ed.), Advances in the economic analysis of participatory and labor-managed firms. (Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms, Vol. 13) (pp. 313–342). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Engelbrecht, H. J. (2014). A general model of the innovation – Subjective well-being nexus. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 24(2), 377–397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-0140343-y. European Commission. (2010). A rationale for action. Accompanying document to ‘Europe 2020 flagship initiative innovation union’. Brussels: European Commission. Frey, B., & Stutzer, A. (2002). What can economists learn from happiness research? Journal of Economic Literature, 40(2), 402–435. https://doi.org/10.1257/002205102320161320. Hochgerner, J. (2013). Social innovation. In E. Carayannis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of creativity, invention, innovation and entrepreneurship (pp. 1678–1686). New York: Springer. Howaldt, J., & Schwarz, M. (2010). Social innovation: Concepts, research fields and international trends. Aachen: IMA/ZLW. Jeannerat, H., O. Crevoisier, G. Brulé & C. Suter (2019). L’apport des sciences humaines et sociales à l’innovation en Suisse (“the contribution of social sciences and humanities to innovation in Switzerland”) (Report Recherche et innovation en Suisse 2020). Kimberly, J. R. (1981). Managerial innovation. In P. C. Nystrom & W. H. Starbuck (Eds.), Handbook of organizational design (pp. 84–104). New York: Oxford University Press.

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Kline, S. (1985). Innovation is not a linear process. Research Management, 28(4), 36–45. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24120799 Knights, D., & McCabe, D. (2002). A road less travelled. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15(3), 235–254. Latour, B. (1987). Science in action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lundvall, B. Å. (1992). National systems of innovation: Towards a theory of innovation and interactive learning. London: Pinter Publishers. Michelsen, A. (2009). Innovation and creativity: Beyond diffusion — On ordered (thus determinable) action and creative organization. Thesis Eleven, 96(1), 64–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0725513608099120. Moulaert, F., Jessop, B., Hulgard, L., & Hamdouch, A. (2013). Social innovation research: A new stage in innovation analysis? In F. Moulaert, D. MacCallum, A. Mehmood, & A. Hamdouch (Eds.), The international handbook on social innovation: Collective action, social learning and transdisciplinary research (pp. 110–130). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Moulaert, F., Martineiii, F., Swyngedouw, E., & Gonzalez, S. (2005). Towards alternative model (s) of local innovation. Urban Studies, 42(11), 1969–1990. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00420980500279893. Mulgan, G. (2012). The theoretical foundations of social innovation. In A. Nicholls & A. Murdoch (Eds.), Social innovation: Blurring boundaries to reconfigure markets (pp. 33–65). Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan. Newfield, C. (2019). “Innovation” discourse and the neoliberal university: Top ten reasons to abolish disruptive innovation. In W. Callison & Z. Manfredi (Eds.), Mutant Neoliberalism (pp. 244–268). New York: Fordham University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/ 9780823285730-010. Nicholls, A., & Murdock, A. (2012). The nature of social innovation. In A. Nicholls & A. Murdock (Eds.), Social Innovation. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating capabilities. The human development approach. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. O’Donnell, G. (2013). Using well-being as a guide to policy. In J. Helliwell, R. Layard, & J. Sachs (Eds.), World happiness report 2013 (pp. 98–111). New York: United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. OECD. (2011). Mixed modes of innovation. In OECD science, technology and industry scoreboard 2011. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/sti_scoreboard-2011-44-en. Oeij, P., Dhondt, S., & Korver, T. (2012). Workplace innovation, social innovation, and social quality. International Journal of Social Quality, 1(2), 31–49. https://doi.org/10.3167/IJSQ. 2011.010204. Ogburn, W. (1922). Social change: With respect to culture and original nature. New York: B. W. Huebsch. Phills, J. A., Deiglmeier, K., & Miller, D. T. (2008). Rediscovering social innovation. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 6(4), 34–43. Pot, P., Totterdill, P., Dondt, S., et al. (2016). Workplace innovation: European policy and theoretical foundation. World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, 12(1), 13–32. https://doi.org/10.1504/WREMSD.2016.073428. Ryff, C. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1069–1081. Stephan, U., Tavares, S. M., Carvalho, H., Ramalho, J., Santos, S. C., & van Veldhoven, M. (2020). Self-employment and eudaimonic well-being: Energized by meaning, enabled by societal legitimacy. Journal of Business Venturing, 35(6), 106047. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent. 2020.106047.

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Totterdill, P., Cressey, P., & Exton, R. (2012). Social innovation at work: Workplace innovation as a social process. In H.-W. Franz, J. Hochgerner, & J. Howaldt (Eds.), Challenge social innovation (pp. 241–259). Amsterdam: Springer. Verme, P. (2009). Happiness, freedom and control. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 71, 146–161. Bocconi University Econpubblica Working Paper, 141. Available at SSRN https:// ssrn.com/abstract¼1471556 Ville, S., & Pol, E. (2008). Social innovation: Buzz word or enduring term? The Journal of SocioEconomics, 38(6), 878–885. Vinck, D. (1999). Les objets intermédiaires dans les réseaux de coopération scientifique. Contribution à la prise en compte des objets dans les dynamiques sociales, Revue française de sociologie, XL-2, 385–414. Von Jacobi, N., Edmiston, D., & Ziegler, R. (2017). Tackling marginalisation through social innovation? Examining the EU social innovation policy agenda from a capabilities perspective. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 18(2), 148–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 19452829.2016.1256277. Wang, E., & Kang, N. (2019). Does life satisfaction matter for pro-environmental behavior? Empirical evidence from China general social survey. Qualitative and Quantitative, 53, 449–469. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-018-0763-0.

Part III

Duality of Innovation

Innovation is jointly a process of creation and a process of destruction. In his famous painting The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, Turner depicts the Temeraire, one of the last boats to have participated in the Battle of Trafalgar, being dragged by a steam tug towards the port in which it will be dismantled. By representing a clear line on the steam tug and a fuzzy one on the old boat, Turner shows jointly the birth of a new world, powered by steam machinery, a new form of energy, and the death of an old one which seems obsolete in comparison. The story of innovation is full of these dualities. It seems that individuals, like Turner, are torn between a romantic link to the past and an attraction towards the future. In this part, we consider the disappearance of a world from the perspective of the workers, namely the Luddites, who reacted against the changes, and we discuss the theories that seek to comprehend these opposing movements.

Chapter 6

The Luddites

Abstract We study a historical event well known to historians of technology: Luddism. This detour seems important to us in order to bring nuances and to bring out a reflection on the impacts of the machinery on happiness, in the prism notably of new technologies and Neoluddism. Keywords Machine · Neoluddism · Luddism · Destruction

When discussing innovation, the debate is often polarized between those who reject technical progress because it would ruin a romantic ideal of the past, and those for whom innovation is always a good thing for societies and individuals, even though a few losers may be left at the side of the road. A prism that well illustrates this polarization is the scholarly debate concerning the Luddites. As we shall see, this social movement of the late eighteenth century has been covered with benevolence and gratitude by historians close to Marxist traditions, and with bitterness and disdain by historians on the conservative side. In this chapter we discuss this movement and how it can possibly related to Subjective Well-Being (SWB). About 1630, a wind-sawmill, erected near London by a Dutchman, succumbed to the excesses of the populace. [. . .] No sooner had Everet in 1758 erected the first wool-shearing machine that was driven by water-power, than it was set on fire by 100,000 people who had been thrown out of work. [. . .] The enormous destruction of machinery that occurred in the English manufacturing districts during the first 15 years of this century, chiefly caused by the employment of the power-loom, and known as the Luddite movement. . . Karl Marx

The late eighteenth century saw the introduction of machinery in Europe and in particular in England. To support the increase in the production on the output side, many features of the production system of the time had to change on the input side. Because the pace of work had to increase to feed production, human labour was increasingly replaced by machinery. On 11 March 1811, 63 jobs were destroyed in the village of Arnold due to the installation of machines. The workers started to mobilize as their hero the figure of Ned Ludd, a person who it was claimed had destroyed a textile machine as a young apprentice in 1779. Although it is likely that Ned Ludd was fictional creation, he became a symbol of the subculture of Luddites © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_6

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and their struggle (Binfield, 2004). Originally close to Nottingham, troubles extended to Leicestershire and Derbyshire. On November 10th, a Luddite named John Westley was killed during the demonstrations, which led to a radicalization of the movement. This phase of struggles and fights led to the adoption of a law forbidding the destruction of machinery. What was first a local reaction then became a general movement, with bands around the north of England and other parts colluding in what became a widespread movement. We should recognize that mechanization was not the only threat to the Luddites’ jobs, but also a decree by the prince forbidding trade with Napoleonian France and its allies, which was blocking large markets outside England (Binfield, 2004). Nevertheless, the memory of the French Revolution was strongly present among the European leaders, and the British government wanted to terminate the movement as soon as possible. In 1812 the British government introduced the Frame Breaking Act, introducing the death penalty for frame breakers. In order to stop the movement, the government sent a force of 40,000 men, which resembled more the inception of a civil war than an uprising. Although the Luddites are often remembered for their acts of violence, particularly in the northern regions, the movement in fact deployed a wide array of methods of protest ranging from food riots to threatening letters to manufacturers and magistrates. To some extent Luddism also included “the silent but inactive acquiescence of the affected towns, where populations had their own grievances against local authorities or government” (Navickas, 2005, p. 281). But the way the movement has been depicted has itself highly depended on the political stance of the historians in question. The most significant account of the movement is that provided in 1963 by the Marxist historian E. P. Thompson, who described the Luddites with sympathy. Thompson’s goal was to restore some credibility to a movement which had often been portrayed as irrationally violent. Many followers of Thompson would re-use his analyses as a means to criticize modernity and to effect a re-enchantment of communal life. On the other end of the spectrum, more conservative authors such as Thomis (1970) saw the movement as apolitical, limited, and reactionary. Beyond these differences, it is important to look back at the reasons for the uprising. Some observers say that the Luddites were not against new techniques per se, but were protesting against the degradation of their conditions, low wages, rising pace which degraded the honour linked to their savoir faire. They felt technology was an attack against their way of living, their work, and their identity. Robin had famously robbed the rich to give to the poor and defended the weak against arbitrary baronial power. But Ned Ludd epitomized the right of the poor to earn their own livelihood and to defend the customs of their trade against dishonourable capitalist depredators. While Robin, a displaced gentleman, signified paternal protection, Ned Ludd evidenced the sturdy self-reliance of a community prepared to resist for itself the notion that market forces rather than moral values should shape the fate of labor. (Binfield, 2004, p. xiv)

The technological movement was related to a cultural change that the Luddites called a “world-turned-upside-down” (Welsford, 1935). The Luddites sometimes marched in women’s clothes as “General Ludd’s wives” to signify their questioning

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of convention. The class question was strongly present. According to Thompson (1980), “class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs” (pp. 8–9). The Luddite movement was a step in configuring a collective identity: “In the years between 1780 and 1832 most English working people came to feel an identity of interests as between themselves, and as against their rulers and employers.” Clearly, therefore, restricting this movement to the consideration of technological questions would be unduly limiting. When looking at the emotional repertoire used in the context of describing the history of the Luddites, there is a clear penchant for negatively valenced emotions such as frustration and anger compared to positively valenced emotions such as joy and happiness. Nonetheless, one can easily re-write these events in terms of either happiness and unhappiness. In order to be able to relate this movement to happiness, it is important to resituate the whole situation within a collective network, since happiness is always directly or indirectly social (Brulé, 2020). These men and women shared a common experience and identity in their work, which constituted some form of pride. Recent findings have shown that collective and national identity plays an important role in the construction of individual happiness (see, e.g., Ha & Jang, 2015; Manstead, 2018). This collective strength, in the case of the Luddites, was challenged by machinery. Not only did the introduction of machinery replace some workers, but the increasing pace was also incompatible with the proper discharging of workers’ tasks, as well as depriving them of their moments of camaraderie. The historian Thomas Carlyle acknowledged there had been a massive change in the “modes of thought and feeling. Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand” (1829, p. 4). The mechanization of the production line also resulted in the mechanization of the social bonds: these became limited, timebound, replaceable, etc. This led, in turn, to sadness but also to increasing frustration and anger. The relation between these workers and technology, embedded within the evolving class struggle, became increasingly anomic and tense. Scitovsky (1986) has written about the importance of companionship for well-being, and these early intuitions have been confirmed by later studies (see, e.g., Sirgy et al., 2001). This alienation was possible due to the “malady of infinite aspiration” of the machine owners (Durkheim, [1925] 1961). The rise of aspiration has a Janus-headed relation to SWB. On the one hand, it fosters ambitions and creativity, and possibly leads to technological improvements. On the other hand, it is now well established that higher aspirations decrease well-being (see, e.g., Diener et al., 1995). As such, Luddism was a determined strike against that modern syndrome that combines better access to technology and comfort with perpetual dissatisfaction. Neoluddism is arguably more multifaceted than Luddism, and is expressed in new forms of contestation of the current technology. Part of this Neoluddism is directed in particular towards robots and social media, although that combat is much harder than for the Luddites now that individuals have to fight against such elusive technologies as networks, the cloud (Conniff, 2011), or killer robots (Hunt-Bull, 2006), as well as the threat of replacement of labour by technology. According to

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Frobish (2002), like Luddism, Neoluddism not only encompasses violent acts but also peaceful movements, individuals, and groups who feel they need technology in order to counter its undesired effects. As for social media, Cassidy (2006) underscores the inevitability of joining platforms such as Facebook due to fear of missing out: “It was viewed as an addictive guilty pleasure—lots of students using language like ‘resisting’ and ‘holding out’ when describing their hesitation to join.” In the end, then, there are still Luddites in some form or another, and there are still constant fights against and for new technologies, although these take new forms as societies and technologies (co)evolve. From the mechanization of that period we have inherited both the best and the worst aspects. It is possible to establish a continuity between the Luddites and today’s frustrations, in which, however, “the indignation of nineteenth-century producers has yielded to the irritation of late-twentieth-century consumers” (Tenner, 1997, p. 6). Therefore, the reflection of Luddism and Neoluddism can be extended from social effects to psychological but also environmental effects. Many of these effects are not directly visible when a given technology first emerges on the market. In that sense, SWB as well as other social and environmental indicators provide us with a means to see if the hidden cost of the technology is not too high for the individual to bear. If, for instance, a new technology brings some level of comfort but the workers remain lonely and depressed, this ought to emerge from well-being surveys. SWB is thus an integrating framework that makes it possible to collate the psychosocial consequences of innovation on the individual. There are caveats to this, however. The first is that this should be a global reflection: since most of the production is done in low-income countries, unhappiness, loneliness, and depression are thus in a way being outsourced to these countries. The second limit is environmental. If the environment is degraded today, this will impact the happiness of generations tomorrow and further in the future. Therefore, the measurement of happiness ought to be complemented by ecological indicators.

References Binfield, K. (2004). Writings of the luddites. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Brulé, G. (2020). Petites mythologies du Bonheur français (“small mythologies of French happiness”). Dunod. Carlyle, T. (1829). Signs of the times. Edinburgh Review, 49, 1–9. Cassidy, J. (2006, May 15). Me media: How hanging out on the internet became big business. The New Yorker. Retrieved October 9, 2008, from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/15/ 060515fa_fact_cassidy Conniff, R. (2011). What the luddites really fought against. Smithsonian. Accessed June 19, 2021. Diener, E., Suh, E., Smith, H., & Shao, L. (1995). National differences in reported subjective wellbeing: Why do they occur? Social Indicators Research, 34(1), 7–32. Retrieved February 20, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27522787 Durkheim, E. ([1925] 1961). Moral education. Free Press. Frobish, T. (2002). Neo-luddites and their rhetorical paradox. Peace Review, 14(2), 207–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402650220140247.

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Ha, S., & Jang, S. (2015). National identity, national pride, and happiness: The case of South Korea. Social Indicators Research, 121(2), 471–482. Retrieved February 19, 2021, from http://www. jstor.org/stable/24721536 Hunt-Bull, N. (2006). A neo-luddite manifesto: Or why I do not love robots. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/2006/WS-06-09/WS06-09-011.pdf Manstead, A. (2018). The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. The British Journal of Social Psychology, 57(2), 267–291. https://doi. org/10.1111/bjso.12251. Navickas, K. (2005). The search for ‘general Ludd’: The mythology of Luddism. Social History, 30 (3), 281–295. Scitovsky, T. (1986). The desire for excitement in modern society. Kyklos, 34, 3–13. Sirgy, M. J., Efraty, D., Siegel, P., & Lee, D. (2001). A new measure of quality of work life (QWL) based on need satisfaction and spillover theories. Social Indicators Research, 55(3), 241–302. Tenner, E. (1997). Why things bite back. Vintage books. Thomis, M. (1970). The luddites: Machine-breaking in regency England. David & Charles. Thompson, E. (1980). The making of the English working class. Penguin Books. Welsford, E. (1935). The fool, his social and literary history. Farrar & Rinehart.

Chapter 7

Creative Destruction

Abstract This concept of creative destruction is well known in innovation studies. As its name suggests, duality leads to winners and losers. The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on this issue in terms of the impact on subjective well-being. Keywords Creative destruction · Unemployment · Subjective well being · Individuals · Societies

The plough is arguably the invention that has had the most impact on the development of human civilizations. By replacing hunting and foraging, the use of a pair of cows to work the soil increased the previous yield by a factor of five (Harford, 2017). Such a epoch-making innovation is a key example of creative destruction (CD), one of the seminal notions introduced by Schumpeter (1935, 1939, 1974). After a brief historical presentation of this notion, we present studies and findings that can nourish our reflections on the influences of creative destruction on happiness. Each society has had a different system of stratification depending on its size, production system, level of technological advancement, beliefs, etc. The works of Nolan and Lenski (2010) or Pickett and Wilkinson (2018) convincingly show that the hunter-gatherer period represents the most egalitarian period in human history. There were very good reasons to keep the degree of stratification to very limited levels. The communities were constituted of groups of several dozen individuals (ca. 30–100 individuals) and, because of the high mobility and the time required to gather food, there was little room for idleness. Often there was one person with a little more power and privilege, but there was no room for prestige goods, and the participation of all the workforce was necessary for the community to survive. This mode of living was dominant throughout the hunter-gatherer period (ca. –100,000/
10,000 years), up until the development of the plough, which constituted a rupture in the development of human civilization. Because of droughts, with the consequent movement of animals that were seeking water, communities settled close to fertile areas well-endowed with water, and started to take advantage of the richness of the ground. The plough enabled the soil to be worked in more efficient way than through mere manual labour. Agriculture then brought an abundance of food and a degree of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_7

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prosperity probably at the time unparalleled in human history. As one-fifth of the population was now able to feed the whole society, this left time and space for other activities, such as building houses, developing crafts, creating cities and religious edifices, and shaping civilization (Harford, 2017). Yet in parallel with that rise in comfort, many unforeseen and undesired consequences arose. Diamond (1987) shows that agriculture was indirectly but undoubtedly the cause of the emergence of stratification. A large part of the population became idle, and that is why armies and strong religious groups were constituted (Nolan & Lenski, 2010). Abundance induced competition for the surplus created (goods, prestige, power) and lead to the emergence of new social structures based on domination and individual ownership, resulting in unequal societies. This was also the root of the development of gender differences with strong role differentiation, which was not so present during the times of hunter-gatherers. As ploughing became the man’s activity, the woman had to remain at home. Together with that multiplication of layers and diversification of roles came tyranny and misogyny. In some sense, this was a result of creative destruction. Another time of unprecedented creative destruction emerged with the development of steam-powered machines, as we saw in the previous chapter with the reaction of the Luddites. Just as the plough used the power of animals instead of human power, the steam machine used mechanical energy instead of biological energy, and yields were achieved that were incomparably larger than those of previous periods. The power of machines was used to produce at a faster pace, and this led to a shift from individual to collective production, prompting vast movements of population from the countryside to the cities where the manufacturing units were concentrated. The creative destruction was not only material but also social: the communities of craftsmen and farmers were destroyed and recomposed in workers’ communities. The plough and the steam engine represent perhaps two of the most extreme examples of what human creativity can do to improve life conditions, in particular vis-à-vis the reliability of food supply; but they also came with unprecedented levels of destruction, notably with respect to relative horizontality and equality, social cohesion, camaraderie, and pride in one’s job. As famously depicted by Joseph Schumpeter, the very introduction of a major innovation is at the same time a decomposition and a recomposition of the socioeconomic and sociocultural landscape—that is, an act of creative destruction. This key concept of the Schumpeterian tradition can be traced back to evolutionist theories such as the ones of Malthus, Darwin, and Spencer (Hodgson, 1997),1 as well as the strong influence of Tarde (Taymans, 1950) on Schumpeter’s thought, in particular in connection with the 1

According to Hodgson, it was Spencer more than Darwin who had an influence on Schumpeter. The former was the one who introduced the idea of evolution, which he described as “a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity through continuous differentiations” (p. 10). Other sources of influence include Martin Heidegger. As Shionoya (2010) shows, there is a direct correspondence between Heidegger’s idea of projection and Schumpeter’s idea of innovation: “In terms of temporality, agents stand on the intersection of ‘projection’ of

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process of diffusion of innovation.2 This concept famously showed that innovation is by definition about change. The old world leads to a new world; some things are being destroyed and others created. For some it leads to utopia, for others to dystopia. It seems innovation has never been better described than with oxymorons: creation and destruction, decomposition and recomposition (Morin, 2013), fragmentation and cohesion (Beaudry, 2021). All such changes can be assessed in terms of Subjective Well-being (SWB). In order for such an investigation to provide any insight, it is important to grasp the mechanisms though which creative destruction can impact the current and future levels of subjective well-being of individuals. Each act of destruction and each creation comes with some degree of positive or negative changes that we could observe via the lens of SWB. But rather than just calculating the net score of the plusses and minuses, we should aim rather at understating what are the factors through which creative destruction can influence the levels of happiness of individuals and societies. In order to do so, we must examine both the willingness and the reluctance to change on the dynamic side, and the possibility of reaching a better situation on the situational side. There are economic, institutional, cultural, and personal factors that make it possible to explain the creative destruction–SWB nexus. Generally speaking, the positive influence of creative destruction on economic growth is now almost tautological.3 Creative destruction seems to represent about a quarter of the observed growth of the economies around the world (Foster et al., 2001). Many studies have looked into the effects of technology on employment (see, e.g., Frey & Osborne, 2017; McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2017), although the net effects of employment and unemployment are hard to account for, since changes within a factory or company can have other unexpected effects on other factories or companies, if not indeed on different sectors or other countries due to a modification of the consumption/production landscape (Vivarelli, 2014). This is also sector-related, as technological innovation seems to foster higher levels of employment as well as better employment conditions, whereas companies driven by non-technological innovation seem to tend towards creating a “precariat” in terms of jobs and working conditions (Guergoat-Larivière & Mofakhami, 2021). There have been few efforts, however, to look at the specific effects on well-being. Among the few studies that exist, Aghion et al. (2016) attempted to study the economic influence of creative destruction on SWB using the Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index, the Candril Ladder of Life, and the Behavioural Risk Factor and Surveillance tool. Their main Being into the future and ‘thrownness’ of Being by the past in Heidegger’s usage, or of ‘innovation’ and ‘routine’ in Schumpeter’s usage.” (p.194) 2 Many authors have acknowledged the extent to which Schumpeter tapped into the legacy of Tarde, although he cited him only in a footnote of The History of Economic Analysis (see, e.g., Taymans, 1950; Djellal & Gallouj, 2017; Rogers, 1962). 3 For Schumpeter, “when the agents content themselves with the ‘circular flow’ and do not challenge the uncertain world of the future, their attitude leads to the static economy that is inauthentic to capitalism” (Shionoya, 2010, p. 194).

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finding is that the effect of creative destruction on subjective well-being is positive. The result of their analyses is based on the criterion of “job turnover rate.” Creative destruction is related to job turnover: when turnover is high, this has both direct and indirect, positive and negative effects on subjective well-being. The results show that the net effect of creative destruction has a mitigated impact on subjective well-being after controlling for unemployment. As one would expect, the effects of job creation and job destruction on subjective well-being are respectively positive and negative. Besides this, however, the increased opportunities in the market for hiring new employees subsequently allows the creation of new consumer goods, offering a wider choice of consumer goods for satisfied consumers. This renewal also has an impact on the improvement of productivity, which in turn leads to an increase in wages and the rate of job creation. Overall, the economists observe a positive effect of creative destruction on subjective well-being. It is well documented that job destruction has a less negative effect when unemployment benefits are higher, whether across countries (see, e.g., Annink et al., 2016; Kamerāde & Bennett, 2018), or within countries with different policies such as the United States (Aghion et al., 2016). In this respect, controlling unemployment reduces this negative impact in favour of the positive one. Creative destruction has a higher positive impact on future well-being than on current wellbeing, and it has a more positive impact on economies that are growing rapidly and that do not tend to outsource labour. This dimension of Aghion et al.’s paper has been criticized for methodological reasons (e.g., concerning the difference in human capital between the industry destroyed and the one created, resulting in a misallocation; see, e.g., Ahmadiani et al., 2019). Using longitudinal data, Böckerman et al. (2009) find that the net cost of creative destruction is negative from the perspective of employee well-being. The relation between creative destruction and SWB also depends on individual attitudes. For instance, job creation has more of a positive impact on future subjective well-being for more “forward-looking” individuals (Aghion et al., 2016). More generally, the relation between the realities of the economy and SWB is partially mediated by cultural factors. On top of the variations in the relation to time within different cultures, the relation to risk, called uncertainty avoidance, is also important in considering the reception of creative destruction. In certain cultures there is a value attached to not being afraid of risk, whereas in others risks are constantly avoided (see, e.g., Hofstede, 2001). It has been proven that in cultures in which uncertainty has a negative connotation, creative destruction is experienced more negatively than in cultures in which uncertainty is positively connoted (Petrakis et al., 2017; Uzuegbunam et al., 2018). Although some pioneers enjoy change and do not fear new situations, a part of the population is always resistant to change as they have invested in their situation economically, emotionally, symbolically, and from the point of view of identity. Another typical activity that also creates something new for others is entrepreneurial activity. Scitovsky referred to Keynes’s General Theory, as well as Keynes seminal 1937 work, in order to show the importance of intrinsic motivation for undertaking new actions, and for achieving individual and overall progress. “[Keynes] assigned a subordinate role to

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businessman’s expectation of profit as a motive for investment, stressing instead his animal spirits, his urge to assume the risk of investment for its own sake [. . .] Keynes fully realized man’s psychological need to engage in activities to occupy him and regarded that need as the main motivating force of all creative activity, not only in the fields of science, art and leisure, but also in that business investment and of economic and technical progress.” (Scitovsky, 1986, p. 189). To emphasize the point, Scitovsky also referred to Schumpeter, who “believed that there would be no innovation, no technical progress under the incentive of the profit alone, without the entrepreneur’s creative urge” (Scitovsky, 1986 [1985]: 198). Finally, one could also look at a dimension that is missing in most of these studies, namely the ecological dimension. Creative destruction might be good for the economy overall (Aghion et al., 2016) or as regards other aspects, yet might also come at a high ecological cost. Some have wondered whether, recently, “creative destruction became more destructive” (Komlos, 2016).4 According to Mulgan (2016), “there is no doubt that many financial innovations destroyed more value than they created” (p. 1). For Soete (2013), this can be extended to many innovations which are “destructive creations.” This ratio assists us in observing the net improvements of technology; and this is also related to what Tenner (1997) defines as the “things that bite back.” By that idiom, he means all the hidden costs of destruction that re-appear and re-emerge in unforeseen and unexpected areas of society: this is called the ripple or rebound effect in ecological economics. The appearance of technology modifies behaviours so that the problem that has apparently been solved, re-emerges or is shifted or replaced by another one. Tenner formulates it in these terms: “whenever we try to take advantage of some technology, we may discover that it induces behaviour which appears to cancel out the very reason for using it” (p. 7). In his terms, this is not only a “side effect,” as sometimes the “revenge effect” is equal to or larger than the original problem. Constantly reshaping businesses, products, and institutions requires a lot of materials, energy, and infrastructure. One could reasonably hypothesize that on average the creative destruction can be associated with high environmental destruction. As such, including the environment in the Creative Destruction–SWB nexus would probably make the picture less rosy than the one painted by the studies abovementioned. In that sense, repeated cycles of creative destruction could lead to what Wright and Nyberg (2014) call “creative self-destruction.” Pansera and Fressoli (2020) show that the revival of creative destruction in the 1980s coincided with a coupling between innovation and growth. According to the authors, innovation could play a role in the current environmental crisis, provided it was to be decoupled from economic growth. This means that the impact of creative destruction on SWB is related to not only economic but also institutional, cultural, and personal characteristics. As in the

He draws this conclusion by investigating “Schumpeter’s creativity ratio,” defined as ScR¼ C
D C , where C is the creative component and D is the negative component. Defined as such, the ratio is the net improvement (C–D) over the improvement (C).

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previous chapter, this requires proper indicators and a proper framework to assess the net effects of creative destruction. Measuring SWB around the world, as well ecological indicators, can be a way to do this. Measuring poorly, or forgetting some undesired consequences—as is clearly the case in some of the studies on creative destruction and SWB—would be to engender false promises.

References Aghion, P., Akcigit, U., Deaton, A., & Roulet, A. (2016). Creative destruction and subjective wellbeing. The American Economic Review, 106(12), 3869–3897. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer. 20150338. Ahmadiani, M., Hyde, A., Jackson, J. (2019, July 21–23). Creative destruction, job reallocation, and subjective well-being. Annual Meeting Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Atlanta. Annink, A., den Dulk, L., & Steijn, B. (2016). Work–family conflict among employees and the selfemployed across Europe. Social Indicators Research, 126, 571–593. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11205-015-0899-4. Beaudry, C. (2021, April 9). The exploration of new data sources and methods—New innovation indicators appropriate to measure the performance and impact within/of innovation ecosystems. Presentation at U-GOT Kies workshop. Böckerman, P., Ilmakunnas, P., & Johansson, E. (2009). Creative destruction and employee wellbeing. MPRA Paper 15447. University Library of Munich. Diamond, J. (1987). The worst mistake in the history of the human race. Discover, 8(5), 64–66. Djellal, F., & Gallouj, F. (2017). The laws of imitation and invention: Gabriel tarde and the evolutionary economics of innovation. Revue économique, 68, 643–671. https://doi.org/10. 3917/reco.684.0643. Foster, L., Haltiwanger, J., & Krizan, C. (2001). Aggregate productivity growth. Lessons from microeconomic evidence. In C. R. Hulten, E. R. Dean, & M. J. Harper (Eds.), New developments in productivity analysis (pp. 303–363). University of Chicago Press. Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2017). The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, 254–280. Guergoat-Larivière, M., & Mofakhami, M. (2021). Innovations, emplois, inégalités. La vie des idées. Harford, T. (2017). How the plough made the modern economy possible. Accessed April 10, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-41903076 Hodgson, G. (1997). The evolutionary and non-Darwinian economics of Joseph Schumpeter. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 7, 131–145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001910050038. Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Sage. Kamerāde, D., & Bennett, M. R. (2018). Rewarding work: Cross-national differences in benefits, volunteering during unemployment, well-being and mental health. Work, Employment and Society, 32(1), 38–56. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017016686030. Komlos, J. (2016). Has creative destruction become more destructive? The B.E Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 16(4), 1–12. McAfee, A., & Brynjolfsson, E. (2017). Machine, platform, crowd: Harnessing our digital future. W.W. Norton. Morin, E. (2013). Il faut enseigner ce qu’est être humain. Accessed April 10, 2021, from https:// www.lemonde.fr/education/article/2013/10/25/edgar-morin-il-faut-enseigner-ce-qu-est-etrehumain_3502485_1473685.html

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Mulgan, G. (2016). Good and bad innovation: What kind of theory and practice do we need to distinguish them? Nesta report. Nolan, P., & Lenski, G. (2010). Human societies: An introduction to macrosociology. Oxford University Press. Pansera, M., & Fressoli, M. (2020). Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era. Organization. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1350508420973631. Petrakis, P., Valsamis, D., & Kafka, K. (2017). From optimal to stagnant growth: The role of institutions and culture. Journal of Innovation and Knowledge, 2(3), 97–105. Pickett, K., & Wilkinson, R. (2018). The inner level: How more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everybody’s wellbeing. Penguin Books. Rogers, E. M. (1962). Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press. Schumpeter, J.-A. (1935). Théorie de l’évolution Économique. Dalloz (traduction française de la deuxième édition de Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, 1926). Schumpeter, J.-A. (1939). Business cycles, a theoretical, historical and statistical analysis of the capitalist process. Mcgraw Hill Book Company. Schumpeter, J.-A. (1974). Capitalisme, socialisme et démocratie, Paris, Petite bibliothèque de Payot (traduction française de la deuxième édition de Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942). Scitovsky, T. (1986). The desire for excitement in modern society. Kyklos, 34, 3–13. Shionoya, Y. (2010). Hermeneutics and the Heidegger = Schumpeter Theses. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 69(1), 188–202. Retrieved August 12, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40607750 Soete, L. (2013). Is innovation always good? In J. Fagerberg, B. R. Martin, & E. S. Andersen (Eds.), Innovation studies, evolution and future challenges (pp. 134–144). Oxford University Press. Taymans, A. C. (1950). Tarde und Schumpeter: A similar vision. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 64(4), 611–622. Tenner, E. (1997). Why things bite back. Vintage Books. Uzuegbunam, I., Geringer, J. M., & Oberst, C. (2018). Creative destruction within and across countries: Do culture and connectedness matter? Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018(1), 10721. Vivarelli, M. (2014). Innovation, employment and skills in advanced and developing countries: A survey of economic literature. Journal of Economic Issues, 48(1), 123–154. Wright, C., & Nyberg, D. (2014). Creative self-destruction: Corporate responses to climate change as political myths. Environmental Politics, 23(2), 205–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016. 2013.867175.

Part IV

Key Issues and Future Development

The purpose of this part is to take the reflection beyond a review of the current empirical and theoretical literature by convening various approaches that could define the landscape of the innovation—Subjective Well-being (SWB) relation in the future, such as transhumanism, responsible innovation and research, care innovation, frugal innovation, creative goods and resonance. This will allow us to define the notion of positive innovation, which we hope will represent a valuable conceptual framework for companies, innovators, citizens, and policy-makers concerned with the implementation of a form of innovation that is line with the visionary dream of Jeremy Bentham—producing the most happiness for the most and for the longest.

Chapter 8

Transhumanism, Back to the Future

Abstract Since we are interested in the impact of technology on happiness, it seems useful to us to look at the question of transhumanism and artificial intelligence. Finally, isn’t the augmented indivdual also a diminished humanity? Keywords Transhumanism · Artificial intelligence · Ethics · Inequality

Transhumanism is a movement that has gained momentum in recent decades. Broadly speaking, this is an umbrella term that includes various trends that share in the desire to harness the possibilities of technology to enhance the biological and mental abilities of humans, believing that this is the inevitable line of progression for humanity. The term itself was coined by the futurist F. M. Esfandiar (also called “FM-2030”) in California in the 1960s, although other observers locate the cradle of transhumanism in France (Moatti, 2020). According to the definition of F. M. Esfandiar, humans of a given generation are only in a transition state towards being post-humans (persons that exist beyond their physical envelope, freed from the “shackles” of nature); the transitory state before post-humanism they refer to as transhumanism. We can turn to the World Transhumanist Association (Bostrom, 2014) for a definition: The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

Most transhumanists share the belief that science will overcome such individual, social, and environmental ills as “aging, cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth” (World Transhumanist Association, 2021). In a previous statement, the WTA declared: “We support the development of access to new technologies that enable everyone to enjoy better minds, better bodies and better lives. In other words, we want people to be better than well” (World Transhumanist Association, 2021). At the root of this movement, there is the belief that any human problem has a technical solution (Ross, 2020). Although the dynamics around transhumanism are quite recent, transhumanists claim longstanding filiations to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_8

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justify their search for longevity and legitimacy. They often tap into the legacy of philosophers such as Pic de la Mirandole, Nicolas de Condorcet (who asked “would it be absurd to consider the improvement of the human race one of as unlimited progress?”), Auguste Comte, the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (who believed in the role of technology to lead us towards “Christian Transhumanism”), and science fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. The recent upsurge of the movement has been due to influential proponents, mostly based in England (Max More, Nick Bostrom) and California (Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, Salim Ismail). It is hardly a coincidence that California is the cradle of the movement, because it has echoes with the cultural movement of the 1960s, in which a strong libertarian ethos was to be found, and this has been reinforced or catalysed by the presence of high-tech companies, which have an interest in developing these perspectives. As a matter of fact, although often claiming to be “a-political,” transhumanism often manifests a link with libertarian or even capitalistic movements, as many of its influential proponents are successful entrepreneurs. Most of the aficionados of transhumanism claim to pursue their goals independently of governments or individuals who they see as biased against transhumanism. The argument is: “if you don’t like it, at least let us do it.” The lack of reflection on the political side has been pointed out elsewhere (Le Dévedec, 2018; Brulé, 2020). As Le Dévedec (2018) shows, there are several reasons to believe that transhumanism is not just a new form of humanism, as is claimed by the enthusiasts of the movement, since the humanism developed during the Enlightenment had political autonomy as the goal or horizon for individuals, whereas this is absent among the transhumanists, and the political question is set aside in most of their writings. However, the fact that the politics are not made explicit does not mean that they are not present. Let us imagine the following situation, often portrayed in dystopian movies or TV series: if technologies enable, say, an increase in cognitive capabilities, and if this technology is expensive, this will unavoidably have political consequences, because rich people will have access to this technology and the poor will not. The same holds for the environment: most technology enthusiasts believe human progress should not stop at the limits of the Earth, and that other planets are therefore necessary for us to develop (as recorded recently in the declarations of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos), but does this mean we should stop caring about our planet? Since the 1960s transhumanists have believed in “extropy” (running against the natural law of entropy) and on this basis deny that they are beholden to natural or environmental laws. Some voices in favour of controlled science seem more reasonable in this regard, such as the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) initiative (Shelley-Egan et al., 2018), or the moderated optimism of Hottois (2018), which does countenance some form of political control over technology (and not pure libertarianism). Among the different forms of transhumanism, Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a particular role. Artificial Intelligence can be seen as a particular form of transhumanism or rather as a specific tool that can expand it further. AI can have implications on a wide array of fields such as agriculture, health, education, work, sexual life, military, etc. AI could improve the yields do agricultural crops and enable to feed a population of ten billion humans. The insertion of chips, valves and biomarkers could help control and regulate the

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nutrients in the body to make sure that the body has what it needs and nothing more. Chips in the brains could help humans memorize, learn languages, compute faster. This could also have implications on the way individuals work. Sensors and data could increase the pleasure people derive from their sexual life. Chips could also increase the vision, the senses of soldiers and make them more resistant to fight in extreme conditions. All of these can have positive influences on happiness (food problems solved, better health, better sexual life, increased performance in general) as well as tyrannical consequences (despotism, violence, inequalities). One can see possible nuances between techno-optimism and bio-conservatism. This is particularly true if we consider Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, in which humans shape technology while technology also shapes humans in return. Rather than a strong division between actors and objects, we have a network of imbricated actors and actants. According to Latour (1992), “humans and non-humans ‘associate’ in chains of different kinds and lengths whose elements co-constitute each other and form actor-networks” (p. 105). There is thus an increasing blurring of the border between the human subject and the robotic subject (Boyer & Farzaneh, 2019). Many proponents of transhumanism have referred to Latour’s theory to defend the claim that society and technology have now merged sufficiently for us to consider that there is already some degree of transhumanism. In their view, further progress is now just a matter of climbing further up the ladder. Some authors have maintained that technology is a good in itself, while others have observed the existent of “suspect technologies” for which there is “reasonable suspicion that their development, deployment, and effects are unevenly distributed, differential, and more likely to be socially unjust than not” (Campbell, 2005, p. 375). The present book does not adopt a philosophical conception of right and wrong in this regard, and takes no view on whether technology will confine us in a Matrixstyle scenario or seek to manipulate us via control of our “pleasure centre” (Bergsma, 2000); rather, we adopt a consequentialist view on the effects of technology on happiness. Therefore, questions concerning the interest of technology are measured by its consequences, actual or expected, for Subjective Well-being (SWB). The relations between transhumanism and SWB could thus be considered from multiple perspectives: socio-economic, health, or environmental. Because no direct empirical findings exist on the matter, we can only speculate based on the existing theories. We can, for instance, look at the influence of transhumanism on SWB through the spectrum of the economy, where we can also be guided by related studies on the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on SWB via the economy. Makridis and Mishra (2020) find a positive effect at the city level between AI penetration rate and levels of SWB, but these effects are explained by economic growth and presence of high levels of human capital. This is also observable in a companion study by Makridis and Han (2020) in which an increase in the growth rate of technology at city level is associated with higher employees’ self-efficacy in the workplace. Therefore, it is less the nature of the activity than the indirect effects and selection effects that are associated with changes in SWB. One associated indirect effect could be a change in the degree of inequalities: because transhumanism is likely to increase the elasticity of the inequalities and because inequalities tend to harm average

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happiness (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2018; Brulé et al., 2019), we could assume that through this mechanism the promotion of transhumanism will decrease average happiness and SWB. This impression is reinforced by the fact that a large part of the transhumanist discourse is buoyed by biological determinism, a view according to which inequalities are not social but an unfortunate result of differences in biology. This development of inequalities is one of the scenarios developed by Fukuyama (2002) in which transhumanism becomes a way to perfect aristocracy. In that sense, transhumanism increases the power of capitalism and of investors. This does not have to be the case, according to Korinek and Stiglitz (2017), if proper redistributive polices exist: but this requires the awareness, the willingness, and the power to submit the benefits of technology to the needs of the greatest number. As summarized by the authors, The proliferation of AI and other forms of worker-replacing technological change can be unambiguously positive in a 1st-best economy in which individuals are fully insured against any adverse effects of innovation, or if it is coupled with the right form of redistribution. In the absence of such intervention, worker-replacing technological change may not only lead to workers getting a diminishing fraction of national income, but may actually make them worse off in absolute terms. (p. 38)

This is also the position of Danaher (2017), who sees two main issues with the massive introduction of technology in the sphere of work. The first one is a redistribution problem, and the second is the problem of “personal axiology,” according to which, in order to flourish, people need to do something with their time (which does not have to be work). Taking an anti-work position, he argues that transhumanism could foster human enjoyment and flourishing if managed properly with good redistribution. But he also warns that this would have to be done carefully, as massive automation could remove the sources of meaning for people. Let us turn, then, to the complex issue of the physicality of our lives “in the world.” It is undeniable that life is full of physical problems and suffering, in particular physical suffering, and that these problems impede our efforts to achieve happiness. Thus, finding ways to reduce or remove physical suffering would likely be a good option to increase happiness. The prospect of avoiding death altogether brings us to the border of philosophical reflections that exceed the scope of this work, but, briefly, one might wonder if there would be any happiness at all if life were eternal? Are we able to enjoy life forever? Is happiness the mere result of external circumstances, or also an intrinsic source into which we tap? According to Castoriadis (2009), alienation is not caused by temporality or death, but precisely by the quest for immortality. Finally, we may observe that the relation between transhumanism and the environment is to a large extent dictated by the beliefs and the dreams that lie behind the movement. Because many transhumanists believe humans will colonize other planets, few seem to care about the planet on which they currently dwell. Those that do care seem to place all their hopes in technological solutions such as “technogaianism” (a combination of technology and conceptions of Gaïa). However, ecological perspectives and a look back at the scenarios drawn up by the Meadows (1972) report show that technology is often not a solution but rather a replacement of

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or a shift in the problem. The ecological problems that technology is supposed to solve are often associated with rebound effects in the form of behavioural changes that cancel out the benefits of technology. Thus, from an Earth-centred point of view, it is likely that, through transhumanism, humans will keep increasing their environmental footprint and therefore degrade average happiness, since pollution is firmly linked to lower levels of well-being.

References Bergsma, A. (2000). Transhumanism and the wisdom of old genes: Is neurotechnology a source of future happiness? Journal of Happiness Studies, 1(3), 401–417. Bostrom, N. (2014). Introduction—The transhumanist FAQ: A general introduction. In C. Mercer & D. F. Maher (Eds.), Transhumanism and the body. Palgrave studies in the future of humanity and its successors. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342768_1. Boyer, A., & Farzaneh, F. (2019). Vers une éthique de la robotique (“Towards an ethic of robotics”). Question(s) de management, 2(24), 67–84. Brulé, G. (2020). Review of Franck DAMOUR, Stanislas DEPREZ et David DOAT, Généalogies et nature du transhumanisme. État actuel du débat. Revue Européenne des sciences sociales, 58 (1), 285–288. Brulé, G., Ravazzini, L., & Suter, C. (2019). Inégalités de patrimoine et bien-être subjectif chez les seniors en Europe. Revue Européenne des sciences sociales, 57(2), 81–110. Campbell, N. (2005). Suspect technologies: Scrutinizing the intersection of science, technology, and policy. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 30(3), 374–402. Castoriadis, C. (2009). Histoire et création, textes philosophiques inédits (1945–1967). (“History and creation, unpublished philosophical texts (1945–1967)”). Editions du Seuil. Danaher, J. (2017). Will life be worth living in a world without work? Technological unemployment and the meaning of life. Science and Engineering Ethics, 23, 41–64. https://doi.org/10. 1007/s11948-016-9770-5. Fukuyama, F. (2002). Our posthuman future: Consequences of the biotechnology revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Hottois, G. (2018). Bioéthique, technosciences et transhumanisme [1]. In E. Hirsch (Ed.), Traité de bioéthique: IV—Les nouveaux territoires de la bioéthique (pp. 457–466). Érès. https://doi.org/ 10.3917/eres.hirsc.2018.01.0457. Korinek, A., & Stiglitz, J. E. (2017). Artificial intelligence and its implications for income distribution and unemployment. NBER Working Paper no. 24174. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau for Economic Research. Latour, B. (1992). Technology is society made durable. In J. Law (Ed.), A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination (pp. 103–131). Routledge. Le Dévedec, N. (2018). Humanisme, transhumanismes : deux conceptions antithétiques de la perfectibilité humaine. In F. Damour, S. Deprez, & D. Doat (Eds.), Généalogies et nature du transhumanisme. État actuel du débat (pp. 19–34). Liber. Makridis, C. A. & Han, J. (2020). The future of work and employee job attitudes and well-being. SSRN working paper. Makridis, C., & Mishra, S. (2020, August 17). (How) Does artificial intelligence raise well-being? Evidence from cities in the United States. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/ abstract¼3669348 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3669348 Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. W. (1972). The limits to growth. University Books. Moatti, A. (2020). Aux racines du transhumanisme. France 1930–1980. Odile Jacob.

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Pickett, K., & Wilkinson, R. (2018). The inner level: How more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everybody’s wellbeing. Penguin Books. Ross, B. (2020). Introduction. In The philosophy of transhumanism (pp. 01–04). Emerald. https:// doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-622-120201001. Shelley-Egan, C., Bowman, D. M., & Robinson, D. K. R. (2018). Devices of responsibility: Over a decade of responsible research and innovation initiatives for nanotechnologies. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24, 1719–1746. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-9978-z. World Transhumanist Association. (2021). Retrieved June, 10, 2021, from https://humanityplus. org/

Chapter 9

Frugal, but Happy?

Abstract One type of innovation that seems quite promising to reconcile innovation and positive impact, especially on happiness, is frugal innovation. We present here the ins and outs of this innovation in terms of well-being. Keywords Frugal · Environment · Good enough innovation · Low cost · Sustainable

Frugal innovation refers to a wide array of ideas. Although the underlying practices might be as old as humanity itself, it has only recently become an academic topic, at least under the current terminology. In its Latin origins the word frugal is related to “fruit,” in which respect it is seen as a symbol of virtue. When related to innovation, it is “not just a matter of exploiting cheap labor (although cheap labor helps), it is a matter of redesigning products and processes to cut out unnecessary costs” (Woolridge, cited in Haudeville & Le Bas, 2016). Tiwari and Herstatt (2012) define it as an attempt to “minimize the use of material and financial resources in the complete value chain (development, manufacturing, distribution, consumption, and disposal) with the objective of reducing the cost of ownership while fulfilling or even exceeding certain pre-defined criteria of acceptable quality standards” (p. 98). Contrary to these production-based definitions, Basu et al. (2013) define frugal innovation from the perspective of the user by describing it as a “design innovation process in which the needs and the circumstances of citizens in the developing world are put first in order to develop appropriate, adaptable, affordable, and accessible services and products for emerging markets.” According to Radjou et al., frugal innovation, also called jugaad innovation, relies on six principles: “1. Find opportunities in a context of adversity and transform constraints into opportunities, 2. Do more with less, 3. Think and act with agility, 4. Aim for simplicity, 5. Involve the marginal population, and 6. Follow your heart” (Radjou et al., 2013, p. 45). The concept gained momentum after the books published by Navi Radjou in 2013 and 2015, which have had a strong influence on the companies of the Silicon Valley and elsewhere. There is a Frugal Innovation Lab at the University of Santa Clara in California, as well as a Center for Frugal Innovation at TU Hamburg. In 2015 the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_9

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Journal of Frugal Innovation was created, published by Springer. Beyond the production versus consumer opposition, these few definitions seem to point in similar directions although technical, axiological, and normative considerations seem somewhat mixed, resulting in a lack of a standardized conceptual approach (Singh et al., 2020). To understand what frugal innovation is and how it can contribute to well-being, it might be easier to look at related concepts to see what is it not, thus following a Saussurian perspective in which defining an word is excluding other meanings. To do so, let us see what connections frugal innovation has with related concepts such as low-cost innovation, good-enough innovation, reverse innovation, or sustainable innovation, in order to define it better. Low-cost innovation is a practice whose purpose is to make a good or a service accessible to populations who previously, for economic reasons, did not have access to it. This is true in particular for groups of people who are situated at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). The term “low cost” is deliberate constructed as a contrast to the idea of “full cost.” It is thus a relative concept that refers to products on the market that are not new in the absolute sense, but may embody some form of cheaper imitation (Kim, 2015). The dichotomy low-cost/full-cost does not portray a continuum of products with different prices, but rather two different types of products. That is the reason why companies who shift from “high tech” to “low tech” usually have distinct engineers and workers (Radjou et al., 2013). The term “good-enough innovation” was coined by Christensen (1997) as a means to suggest that companies do not need to seek perfection in order to enter the market and disrupt entire segments of it. This is a form of innovation that meets or exceeds the requirements of quality regarding the product, but with no extra functionality (Gadiesh et al., 2007). Just as for low-cost innovation, this form of innovation starts from existing products to keep only what is essential. Reverse innovation, also called “trickle-up innovation,” is a form of innovation which was first observed in the developing world and later took root in the industrialized world. It is a process whereby goods or services developed in emerging economies are used to meet the needs of individuals in rich countries (thus reversing the classic trends of innovative products going from high-income countries to middle- and low-income countries). For instance, the Dacia car model, initially developed for Eastern European countries, has met with strong demand in Western Europe, in particular after the 2008–2009 financial crisis (Radjou et al., 2013); this was due both to a decline in purchasing power in Western Europe, and to the development of more frugal attitudes (Birkner, 2013; Egol et al., 2010). Although often broadly defined, sustainable innovation is usually located at the intersection of the economic, social, and environmental worlds. In line with the definition in the Oslo Manual, it refers not only to products and services but also to business and organization models. This is pictured in the definition by Yoon and Tello (2009): “sustainable innovation can reasonably be defined as the development of new products, processes, services and technologies that contribute to the development and wellbeing of human needs and institutions while respecting the worlds’ natural resources and regenerative capacity.” From the perspective of innovation, it can be seen as a combination of social innovation and environmental innovation.

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All in all, frugal innovation is related to all of these concepts and, as Haudeville and Le Bas (2016) put it, it is an advantageous conceptualization in the sense that it has retained the best from each definition (having more functionality at a better price and with less material, while satisfying low-income markets as well as high-income markets). Frugal innovation is associated with a wide array of positive outputs, both in normal circumstances as well as when a crisis occurs, such as the COVID pandemic (Vesci et al., 2021). There are several ways to relate frugal innovation and its related concepts to wellbeing, and again we can see these ways as mediated by technology, consumption, or expectations. According to Basu et al. (2013), “social enterprises are built around the idea of Frugal Innovation and entrepreneurship to solve sustainability challenges in Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) markets.” By providing products to emerging markets, such innovation offers communication and consumption possibilities to the largest number of people. By increasing the options of the poorest, it can increase the happiness of those who are the least satisfied with their lives (see, e.g., Hill et al., 2012 for happiness in low-income countries). By tackling the possibilities of BoP markets, it can increase the life satisfaction of the least satisfied. In that sense, frugal innovation also has an empowering role, as we have seen in the case of social innovation—which is not surprising, since there is an overlap between these two forms of innovation. As in some cases of social innovation, frugal innovation can either be a top-down initiative done in a frugal way, or a bottom-up one meant to answer to local issues. Frugal innovation makes it possible to create with little means, and not only in developing markets but also in highincome countries, such as exemplified by the makers and DIY initiatives that respond to local problems within their communities. The relation with well-being is ambivalent. For some, it is related to austerity: “While frugality may be accepted as a necessary feature of the future it is usually portrayed as an onerous undertaking, one requiring personal sacrifice of the highest order. People, it is argued, are being asked to give up a modern, high-technology existence for an austere, bleak but needed substitute” (De Young, 1990, p. 216). For others, it can lead to happiness through meaning (Venhoeven et al., 2013; CorralVerdugo et al., 2011; Iwata, 2001), although causality is not clear (are happy/nonmaterialistic people more fugal or is frugality leading to happiness?). In that sense, frugality can be seen as a choice to leave the “rat race” of consumption and its deceiving peak experiences (see Fredrickson & Kahneman, 1993) in favour of a more meaningful life. Frugal innovation can represent a path in that direction, a choice to not necessarily maximize but to optimize with what is at our disposal. On top of these purely materialistic considerations (increasing product availability to the poorest), frugal innovation is also related to underlying attitudes. Research about expectations is now well established, and frugality can be a way for individuals to avoid exposure to unmet satisfactions deriving from materialism, which is related to lower levels of satisfaction (Kasser & Sheldon, 2002; Brown & Kasser, 2005). In that sense, frugal innovation can bring missing products to the BoP, and could be a way for well-off citizens to be happy with what they have.

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References Basu, R., Banerjee, P., & Sweeny, E. (2013). Frugal innovation: Core competencies to address global sustainability. Journal of Management for Global Sustainability, 1(2), 63–82. Birkner, C. (2013).Thrifty brits: Economic austerity in the U.K. has given rise to a more frugal British consumer. Marketing News. Brown, K. W., & Kasser, T. (2005). Are psychological and ecological well-being compatible? The role of values, mindfulness, and lifestyle. Social Indicators Research, 74(2), 349–368. Christensen, C. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business School Press. Corral-Verdugo, V., Fraijo-Sing, B., Mireles-Acosta, J., & Tapia Vargas, A. (2011). Happiness as correlate of sustainable behavior: A study of pro-ecological, frugal, equitable and altruistic actions that promote subjective wellbeing. Human Ecology Review, 18, 95–104. De Young, R. (1990). Some psychological aspects of living lightly: Desired lifestyle patterns and conservation behavior. Journal of Environmental Systems, 20, 215–227. Egol, M., Clyde, A., Rangan, K., & Sanderson, R. (2010). The new consumer frugality: Adapting to the enduring shift in U.S. consumer spending and behavior. Available from Booz & Company: http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/he_New_Consumer_Frugality.pdf Fredrickson, B., & Kahneman, D. (1993). Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations of affective episodes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(1), 45–55. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0022-3514.65.1.45. Gadiesh, O., Leung, P., & Vestring, T. (2007). The battle for China’s good-enough market. Harvard Business Review, 85(9), 81–89. Haudeville, B., & Le Bas, C. (2016). L’innovation frugale: une nouvelle opportunité pour les économies en développement ? [1]. Mondes en développement, 173(1), 11–12. Hill, R., Martin, K., & Chaplin, L. (2012). A tale of two marketplaces: Consumption restriction, social comparison, and life satisfaction. Marketing Letters, 23(3), 731–744. Retrieved April 6, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23259246 Iwata, O. (2001). Attitudinal determinants of environmentally responsible behavior. Social Behavior and Personality, 29, 183–190. Kasser, T., & Sheldon, K. M. (2002). What makes for a Merry Christmas? Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(4), 313–332. Kim, Y. (2015). Environmental, sustainable behaviors and innovation of firms during the financial crisis. Business Strategy and the Environment, 24(1), 58–72. Radjou, N., Prabhu, J., & Ahuja, S. (2013). L’Innovation jugaad: Redevenons ingénieux! Éditions Diateino. Singh, R., Seniaray, S., & Saxena, P. (2020). A framework for the improvement of frugal design practices. Designs, 4(3), 37. https://doi.org/10.3390/designs4030037. Tiwari, R., & Herstatt, C. (2012). Assessing India’s lead market potential for cost-effective innovations. Journal of Indian Business Research, 4(2), 97–115. Venhoeven, L. A., Bolderdijk, J. W., & Steg, L. (2013). Explaining the paradox: How pro-environmental behaviour can both thwart and foster well-being. Sustainability, 5(4), 1372–1386. https://doi.org/10.3390/su5041372. Vesci, M., Feola, R., Parente, R., & Radjou, N. (2021). How to save the world during a pandemic event. A case study of frugal innovation. R&D Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/radm. 12459. Yoon, E., & Tello, S. (2009). Drivers of sustainable innovation: Explanatory views and corporate strategies. Seoul Journal of Business, 15(2), 85115.

Chapter 10

Responsible Research and Innovation and Innovation-Care

Abstract Here we discuss two particularly interesting and appropriate approaches for taking into consideration the impacts of innovation on the individual, and even his happiness. The first is more a practice initiated by the EU, the second a philosophical approach. Keywords Care · Responsible · Innovator · Ethics · Innovation-care

This chapter introduces two important concepts which are useful in our research on the connection between innovation and subjective wellbeing. The first concept comes from the work of Von Schomberg (2011, 2013), and is also reflected in the scope of the European Commission’s financial instrument Horizon 2020. Responsible research and innovation is an approach that anticipates and assesses potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim to foster the design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation. The second concept is care innovation, understood as a framework which takes into consideration the Good Life. The dual dimension of innovation is, it seems to us, implicitly taken into consideration by public decision-makers and certain relevant institutions. We can refer in this respect to the notion of Responsible Research and Innovation instituted by the European Union, according to which society must be integrated into the innovative process: In 2001, the ‘Science and Society’ action plan was launched in order to define a common strategy to establish a better link between science and European citizens. In 2007, as part of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7), Science in Society (SiS) became Science in Society (SIS), with the main objective of encouraging public engagement and a sustained two-way dialogue between science and civil society. This effort is continued under Horizon 2020 Part V “Science with and for Society.”

Since 2010, the focus has been on developing a concept that reconciles the aspirations and ambitions of individuals as well as research and innovation actors: this would be a framework for responsible research and innovation (RRI). RRI © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_10

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represents an ambitious challenge to create a research and innovation policy driven by societal needs and involving all societal actors through inclusive participatory approaches. RRI is now a cross-cutting issue of Horizon 2020. We take up here some developments of Munier (2021) about innovation-care. Innovation-care aims to ensure that every individual who comes into contact with an innovation is handled with care, regardless of the sector, market, product, or service. According to Pavie (2018), what is crucial here is the expression of care. It is a commitment that is not taken as a response to the effects of the innovation on the individual. It is the individual who is the focus of attention, especially with regard to the deleterious effects that innovation can induce. Thus, the concept of innovation-care must consider the future, especially in anticipating the consequences of innovations. The innovator must ask himself how an innovation will evolve and how the individual will possibly be impacted. In this approach, three different notions are important: ethics, innovation-responsibility and care. Coming back to the notion of happiness, innovation-care aims to make happiness possible for as many people as possible (Pavie, 2018). Care is understood as the primary objective of innovation. The innovator must not only gain economic benefit, but at the same time must also see himself as a citizen, an individual who uses the innovation. In this way, the subjective well-being of the innovator and that of the citizen can be combined from the beginning of the process. After this brief presentation of the definition of innovation-care, a number of questions can be asked about its application process. First of all, one can further question the possible dichotomy between innovators and citizens. Even if, in theory, innovators are also citizens affected by their innovations, in reality, there is a gap. The innovator, as the creator of the innovation, has a priori a dominant position with respect to the citizen. He knows the needs and wishes of the market, and therefore also has the possibility to influence it. Even if one can assume that the innovator does not intentionally want to do harm, the question arises as to how he would react if he had to decide between an innovation that could not be considered as a care innovation but would generate benefits, and an innovation that would not be economically interesting but would be an asset for the individual citizen. Taking this interdependence into account can probably contribute to the awareness of the innovator’s thinking and acting. The goal is to accept this interdependence while taking care of oneself and others, which is surely not a trivial difficulty for most companies. This shows that it is not always possible to assume that an innovation will naturally create happiness for citizens. The innovator must think beyond the satisfaction of the citizen’s needs, especially in the short term. For example, a fancy new cell phone will certainly make many people happy; however, as soon as one realizes that the mass production of these devices has an impact on the environment, since non-renewable resources are needed for their production, the innovator will be seen as contributing to a deterioration of the citizens’ standard of living in the long run. Furthermore, to implement true innovation-care, it is not enough to focus only on the citizens directly affected by the innovation. It is also necessary to take into

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account all those who might be indirectly affected. It is therefore necessary to define the responsibility of innovation in a different way, taking into account all actors, regardless of their role and function. Thus, Pavie (2018) emphasizes that the innovator should be among those who provide citizens with different forms of care. However, to ensure that a certain quality is maintained, care must always be compatible with the economic objectives of companies, and must respond to concrete real-life events.

References Munier, F. (2021). Innovation and subjective well-being. In D. Uzunidis (Ed.), Handbook of innovation. Wiley. Pavie, X. (2018). L’innovation à l’épreuve de la philosophie. PUF. Von Schomberg, R. (2011). Towards responsible research and innovation in the information and communication technologies fields. European Commission. Von Schomberg, R. (2013). A vision of responsible innovation. In R. Owen, J. Bessant, & M. Heintz (Eds.), Responsible innovation (pp. 51–74). Wiley.

Chapter 11

Creative Goods and Resonance

Abstract We study two concepts inviting the individual to free himself from a too important prevalence of technology and to find a good life, beyond the material comfort, it is the concept of creative goods and resonance. Keywords Creative goods · Resonance · Acceleration · Good life

The purpose of this chapter is to draw both the links between Scitovsky’s work on the concept of Creative Goods and the concept of Resonance with the main outcomes of our study of the innovation—Subjective Well-being (SWB) relationship. Together with the pioneering work of Easterlin (1974), Scitovsky has often been cited in efforts to explain the gap that has been discovered between growth and happiness (see, e.g., Pugno, 2013). Going beyond positing a simple relation between consumption and happiness, Scitovsky invites us to look at what type of consumption we are considering, and the reasons for that consumption. More specifically, Scitovsky uses the classification of defensive goods and creative goods developed by Hawtrey (1925),1 and substitutes these terms into the debate on consumption and well-being. According to Scitovsky, defensive goods create pleasures in the sense that they alleviate previous pain. The frustrated employee finds some form of compensation by purchasing some new clothes, or a new car. This means that pain, whether latent or expressed, must necessarily be gone through in order to reach pleasure. On the other hand, creative goods can create pleasure ex nihilo, without needing a previous pain. Curiosity and creativity lead individuals to pleasure regardless of their previous mental state. In that sense, defensive goods have a compensatory function, while creative goods have an additive function (see Bariletti & Sanfilippo, 2015). The pleasure in the first case would look like a form of comfort, whereas in the second case it would look like a form of excitement and arousal. The 1

[i]t will be convenient to distinguish two broad classes of object of consumption: on the one hand those products which are intended to prevent or remedy pains, injuries or distresses, and on the other those which are intended to supply some positive gratification or satisfaction. They may be conveniently named defensive products and creative products. (p. 189)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_11

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second novelty is the explanation given by Scitovsky in order to capture the difference of attitudes or background as regards reaching these two different states. According to him, the main limitation to entering the additive zone, and the main reason for which most people stay in the compensatory zone, is “cultural limitation.” In other words, most people don’t know how to enjoy their free time: “The reason for such lopsided growth is simple enough. Thanks to our technical inventiveness, we have greatly increased the effectiveness of our labour power in producing comfort; but novelty and its stimulus spring largely from imagination, and we have not managed to increase the effectiveness of human imagination in producing novelty” (Scitovsky, 1992, p. 259). Authors such as Bruni and Stanca have explicitly linked these forms of consumption to life satisfaction: we find a positive effect of indicators of relational goods on life satisfaction, and a negative impact of television viewing on relational activities, controlling for individual demographic and socio-economic factors, personality characteristics and environmental differences. [. . .] We interpret these findings as an indication that lower consumption of relational goods may contribute to offset the impact of higher income levels, thus providing an additional explanation for the income-happiness paradox. The crowding-out effect of television viewing is indicated as an explanation of individual underconsumption of relational goods. (Bruni & Stanca, 2008, p. 1)

Possibly, also, people are better at remembering their peak pleasure than their average pleasure (Fredrickson & Kahneman, 1993). This echoes some of the work of Fromm (1941), according to whom modernity has pushed citizens to demand negative freedom (“freedom from”) without seeking to express positive freedom (“freedom to”). The increasing gap between negative freedom and positive freedom fosters a syndrome in which the feeling of the fear of freedom leaves individuals lost, neurotic, and ready to submit to authority.2 This authoritarian syndrome can take the voice of a dictator, as well as the more subtle voice of marketing and advertisement. As Fromm asks: “Could it be that the middle-class life of prosperity, while satisfying our material needs leaves us with a feeling of intense boredom, and that suicide and alcoholism are pathological ways of escape from boredom?” (1955, p. 19). For both authors, “scientific discovery, artistic work, and craftsmanship” are the main activities which nourish the human energy of creation. The lack of culture which Fromm and Scitovsky are both, in their own ways, describing, is also the reason why many people enter the world of consumption of goods rather than relational goods. To flourish, Scitovsky believes, we must educate people to reach the realm of creative goods. For Fromm, it is important to shift from the world of having to the world of being. This requires time for people to acculturate themselves to technology, which Ogburn (1922) describes as the “cultural lag.” To put it in other words, our modern societies do not lead to alienation because of a lack of material goods, but because individuals are not adapted to deal with choice, a phenomenon Schwartz (2004) calls “the paradox of choice.”

2

For a close analysis of the links between Fromm and Scitovsky, see Di Giovinazzo (2019).

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By including the contemporary satisfaction of desires, needs for stimuli, and social needs, creative goods are able to satisfy self-interest (experiencing pleasant and soothing sensations to satisfy the need for stimulation and humane relationships) precisely because, at the very moment of consumption, they contribute to satisfying the interest of others. Rosa’s work (2013, 2019) provides a source of inspiration for our project of conceptualizing positive innovation. Rosa first makes an observation concerning an apparent contradiction linked to the notion of acceleration. Technical developments save time; yet time is something that increasingly we lack. This phenomenon has deleterious effects on the good life: how can we explain it? An important concept to take into account here is that of dynamic stabilization, which is based on the capitalist requirements of economic growth, technological acceleration, and permanent innovation. Without these injunctions our societies would not function; and it is this, at root, which gives rise to this formidable paradox of change within stabilization. This raises a number of important points that will be relevant later when we come to introduce our concept of Positive Innovation. Indeed, since our modern societies permanently need to be fed according to this double requirement, we see the emergence of excess consumption, while serious questions arise concerning the well-being of individuals. Is this incessant accumulation necessary in order to find happiness? Isn’t this acceleration rather a source of alienation; does it not lead to a form of emptiness, of absence from the World, from others, and from things? This quest for abundance leads to a fixation with the Triple A: availability, accessibility, and attainability. Individuals become trapped in the belief that a good life must be linked to the achievement of these three As. This seems to be even more prevalent with regard to ICT. That is to say, we become “Alone together,” without real connection with others. We lose the world even as we make it more available because of this Triple A–induced rush. And this also estranges us from the capacity for resonance, another important concept proposed by Rosa (2019). Resonance is the answer to the alienation caused by the acceleration in our societies and its negative impact on well-being. Resonance is the capacity of individuals to feel affected by another person, object, music, etc. There is a double movement in resonance: first, the affection (we are touched by an external thing); then, the emotion (our response to this affection, which is what allows the connection). Resonance is not consonance, because we are different; nor is it dissonance, a source of conflict. Resonance seems to be the paradigm that offers a framework for understanding the duality of innovation, which as we have already mentioned is the key to attaining the good life. Thus the key becomes not the accumulation of resources, but rather a change in our way of relating to the World. Resources are only a means, and cannot be an end in themselves. Happiness is found more in this need of the individual to be related to the World, than in the instrumental reason which leads in the end to cold and mute relations. Resonance allows each person to be an actor, carried by the World, which then becomes attractive (responsive) and not repulsive. Attention to others therefore matters, and we see echoes here with the concept of care innovation. This resonance with the World, with others, and with

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objects, is also a source of attention in the sense of affection; indeed, it may even be understood in terms of the search for recognition as a vector of happiness (Munier, 2018).

References Bariletti, A., & Sanfilippo, E. (2015). At the origin of the notion of “creative goods” in economics: Scitovsky and Hawtrey. Working Papers 2015-02. Universita’ di Cassino, Dipartimento di Economia e Giurisprudenza. Bruni, L., & Stanca, L. (2008). Watching alone: Relational goods, television and happiness. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 65(3–4), 506–528. Di Giovinazzo, V. (2019). A tale of two critics: Erich Fromm and Tibor Scitovsky on the consumer society. History of Political Economy, 51(2), 329–359. https://doi.org/10.1215/001827027368884. Easterlin, R. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In R. David & R. Reder (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz. Academic. Fredrickson, B., & Kahneman, D. (1993). Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations of affective episodes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(1), 45–55. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0022-3514.65.1.45. Fromm, E. (1941). The fear of freedom. Farrar & Rinehart. Fromm, E. (1955). The sane society. Rinehart. Hawtrey, R. (1925). Public expenditure and the demand for labour. Economica, 5(13), 38–48. Munier, F. (2018). The self and the others—Recognition and subjective well-being: Some empirical evidences. In R. Ege & H. Ingersheim (Eds.), The individual and the other in economic thought. Routledge. Ogburn, W. (1922). Social change: With respect to culture and original nature. B. W. Huebsch. Pugno, M. (2013). Scitovsky and the income-happiness paradox. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 43, 1–10. Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration—A new theory of modernity. Columbia University Press, NYC. Rosa, H. (2019). Resonance: A sociology of our relationship to the world. Polity Press. Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice—Why more is less. In How the culture of abundance robs us of satisfaction. Harper. Scitovsky, T. (1992 [1976]). The joyless economy: The psychology of human satisfaction (Rev. ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chapter 12

Towards Positive Innovation

Abstract This chapter summarizes the main results of the previous chapters in order to propose a new concept, that of Positive Innovation, allowing for a happy medium between innovation and happiness. Keywords Positive innovation · Juste milieu · Virtue

What is goodness? In what sense is innovation progress? From the perspective of whom? These are questions that we have tried to address, at least partially, in the previous chapters, but as disjecta membras. Also inspired by the work of Engelbrecht (2014, 2018), Brivio et al. (2018), and Riva (2012), we propose this concept of positive innovation with the ambition of reconciling innovation and happiness. There are different types of innovation that unequally and differentially lead to either an enhancement or a depreciation of Subjective Well-being (SWB). The relation between innovation and SWB is ambivalent, and positive innovation can only be described as depicted in Fig. 12.1. To establish a coordinated and coherent methodology that could be used by policymakers to declare an innovation to be good or not, and to create a specific label to this effect that was based on scientific standards, a deeper level of structuration is required in our approach. Specifically, we require a consistent theoretical framework, a system of measurement of the impacts of a given innovation on multiple systems and actors, and a knowledge of what that system measures and what it does not.

Framework There have been many attempts to create solid theoretical frameworks describing a “good innovation” from the institutional perspective. One can cite, for instance, the European Commission, which recently promised to support responsible innovation, as we saw in the previous chapter, defined as an “approach that anticipates and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_12

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Fig. 12.1 Positive innovation, striking a subtle balance in order to reach sustainable subjective well-being. Source: Authors

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assesses potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation with the aim to foster the design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation” (EC, 2020). As noted by Mulgan (2016), to be effective this would require proper operationalization, but this is currently lacking as the definition is too broad to include or exclude most candidates for that label. To go beyond the aggregation of buzzwords, a good framework needs to discriminate what is a good/responsible innovation and what is not. Thus, just as important as the definition is a framework that enables the collection, the gathering, and the analysis of the data necessary to qualify an innovation as responsible, sustainable, or viable. To be more specific and to seek to understand the positive and negative impacts of a given innovation, one needs to understand (1) the actual and potential impacts; (2) the individuals, objects, or systems affected by it; and (3) how individuals will modify their behaviour following the introduction of technology. In terms of impacts, these can affect the different components of our quality of life in various ways. These include: impacts on health, on working abilities, on working strains or pleasures, on the quality of the immediate or general environment, the quality of the landscape, on administrative tasks, on digital freedom, on access, knowledge, and privacy with respect to our personal data, on free time, leisure, hope, etc. To understand the conditions under which an innovation can be deemed to be good requires we think about the entities that can be influenced by the innovation. We can note at least four: individuals, communities, society as a whole, and the environment.

Frame of Measurement Following Mulgan, we could say that most disciplines that have sought evaluate the impact of innovation have failed to do so. He cites in particular the error of maintaining a focus “on technology in general (automation, ICT, robots) [rather] than about specific innovations.” This does not mean, however, that methods which could be used to assess these impacts are entirely absent. A field in which impact evaluation has been abundant is environmental sciences. In that field, many methods and metrics have been developed since the 1960s to assess the potential or actual impacts of innovation, whether procedural (Environmental Impact Assessment, Strategic Impact Assessment, Scenario Analysis, Risk management), analytical (life cycle assessment, Material Flow Analysis), sometimes leading to aggregated measures (ecological footprint, carbon footprint) (see, e.g., Andersson et al., 2016 for a review). These methods could be used more systematically in the case of innovation by including not only environmental indicators but also social indicators such as happiness and fairness. In particular, a Life Cycle Assessment sometimes includes a social dimension (thus, a Social Life Cycle Assessment), whose social component could be measured by SWB (Jorgensen et al., 2010). In other words, for each innovation, a group of experts and citizens could be formed in order to evaluate the impact on the population as a whole, the impacts on workers, the impacts on the

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Fig. 12.2 The balance between SWB-enhancing and SWB-depreciating forces. Source: Authors

environmental, and the impact on specific subpopulations. This sort of procedure is at the core of all environmental assessment procedures, and it could plausibly be enlarged to include happiness or other social measures. An assessment of average happiness would be necessary, as well as of the happiness of specific groups. After this, criteria should be set as a basis upon which to take decisions (if an innovation leads to an extremely unhappy subgroup but improves average happiness, should it be adopted?). Furthermore, if the environment is damaged, this will diminish the capacity of future generations to achieve happiness. Therefore, intergenerational and intragenerational justice should also be considered. To paraphrase the definition of sustainable development, positive innovation is a form of innovation that enables the creation of new opportunities for current generations to have a good life without depriving future generations of the opportunities to have a good life. As we have shown throughout this book, this is a subtle balance to strike, as shown in Fig. 12.2.

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The Limits of Measurement The fact that we are aiming to measure the impacts of a given innovation does not mean that we should blindly trust any system of measurement that is presented to us. There is a vast tradition of critical reviews of metrics, and a survey of this tradition invites both prudence and humility (see, e.g., Brulé & Maggino, 2017). As observed by Mulgan, there are at least four grounds for scepticism about any systematic attempts to assess emerging technologies: The first is that no-one can predict how technologies will evolve [. . .] The second is that even if you can predict how a technology will evolve, it’s very hard to predict who will benefit or suffer. [. . .] The third is that it’s impossible to define what the counterfactual to any given innovation is. A coal mine despoils nature and emits lots of CO2. But if the alternative is to chop down and burn a large forest, the mine might be better both for nature and the climate. [. . .] The fourth is a general problem of anything future-oriented: the incumbents who may stand to lose most from an innovation are likely to be wellorganised and powerful, while potential future beneficiaries may be powerless and lack a voice. (p. 3)

And as he later remarks: “any attempts to assess technologies are fraught with difficulty—since we cannot know with much certainty how they may develop, let alone what effects they may have.” This means, in effect, that any system of measurement is already as good as it can be: but it cannot capture everything. No system should pretend to encapsulate the whole of reality and to measure all the actual and potential impacts.

Ethics In the end, deciding which innovation should be taken up and which set aside is a matter of anticipation, political process, and smart judgement. A good political process is required since there is a social asymmetry (following Luhmann, 2002) between those who take risks and those who benefit from them. This requires a process and ethics committee, as has been well described by Hottois (2018). This happens, for instance, in bioethics committee in which themes such as transhumanism are less of an abstraction or a radical confrontation between bioconservatives and technonaives, and more a discussion grounded in facts, albeit that personal values and preferences naturally interfere.

Positive Innovation, a Sociocultural Question It is important to resituate the question of positive innovation within the larger social, political, and cultural debate. Innovation is embedded in the social word. As noted in the previous chapter, because of the cultural lag described by Ogburn (1922), we

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never know how individuals will acculturate themselves to the new technology. If consumers do not learn how to use material goods properly, they may fall into defensive consumption and become slaves of technology. But if they do maintain a critical distance from the new technology, it can play a useful role and there is less risk of rebound effects. This means that the question of positive innovation is not merely technological but socio-technological, since the innovation– Subjective Well-being (SWB) relation is heavily mediated by cultural factors. We could therefore say, following Scitovsky, that the main road by which to reach positive innovation is education. By following that road, individuals can come to realize that creative goods bring more satisfaction than defensive goods, and that the realm of being is more satisfactory than that of having. With that mindset, innovation becomes an enabler and not an end in itself. Technological advancement cannot be considered as progress if it decreases individuals’ happiness in the long run. Only by keeping a critical distance from both technology and the idea of progress can we seek to ensure that they will lead to positive innovation. This requires we stop the autonomization of technological progress and aim for “the most happiness for the most and the longest.” This will require a readjustment of what is valued in our societies. As long as material prosperity and technological advancements are followed blindly, negative innovation will flourish; but if moderation, criticism, and optimism are rightly balanced, there can be greater room for positive innovation. Quoting Aristotle once again, we can say that “educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

References Andersson, K., Brynolf, S., Landquist, H., & Svensson, E. (2016). Methods and tools for environmental assessment. In K. Andersson, S. Brynolf, J. Lindgren, & M. Wilewska-Bien (Eds.), Shipping and the environment. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49045-7_9. Brivio, E., Gaudioso, F., Vergine, I., Mirizzi, C. R., Reina, C., Stellari, A., & Galimberti, C. (2018). Preventing technostress through positive technology. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2569. https:// doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02569. Brulé, G., & Maggino, F. (2017). Metrics of subjective well-being: Limits and improvements. Springer. Engelbrecht, H. J. (2014). A general model of the innovation—Subjective well-being nexus. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 24(2), 377–397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-0140343-y. Engelbrecht, H. (2018). The (social) innovation—Subjective well-being nexus: Subjective Wellbeing impacts as an additional assessment metric of technological and social innovations. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 31(3), 317–332. https://doi. org/10.1080/13511610.2017.1319262. European Commission. (2020). Responsible research & innovation. Accessed April 8, 2021, from https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/responsible-researchinnovation Hottois, G. (2018). Bioéthique, technosciences et transhumanisme [1]. In E. Hirsch (Ed.), Traité de bioéthique: IV—Les nouveaux territoires de la bioéthique (pp. 457–466). Érès. https://doi.org/ 10.3917/eres.hirsc.2018.01.0457.

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Jørgensen, A., Lai, L. C. H., & Hauschild, M. Z. (2010). Assessing the validity of impact pathways for child labour and well-being in social life cycle assessment. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 15(5). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-009-0131-3. Luhmann, N. (2002). Risk: A sociological theory. Routledge. Mulgan, G. (2016). Good and bad innovation:What kind of theory and practice do we need to distinguish them? Nesta report. Ogburn, W. (1922). Social change : With respect to culture and original nature. B. W. Huebsch. Riva, G. (2012). What is positive technology and its impact on CyberPsychology. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 181, 37–41. https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-121-2-37.

Part V

Conclusion

Chapter 13

Conclusion

Abstract The entrepreneur is now seen as one of the most valued profile of our societies. This is because innovation is seen as intrinsically good. However, there is sometimes a blind eye for undesired consequences of innovation. One should therefore look at Aristotelian “juste milieu” to balance benefits and drawbacks of innovation. Keywords Entrepreneur · Aristotle · Juste milieu

Innovation is a term that carries a positive meaning not only for entrepreneurs, but also for politicians, bankers, the private sector in general, and even the general public. The best-known innovators—Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk—are not only the richest men in the world, they are indeed as glorified as stars of cinema. Nor is this fame incongruous, as the innovations they have brought, as well as innovations in general, can indisputably be paths to well-being in certain sectors and under certain conditions (health, workplace, future of work, transport, etc.). However, let us not make the lazy extrapolation (or, as the case may be, case intrapolation) that innovation is intrinsically good. As we have tried to show with the scattered examples in this book, innovation is Janus-headed, and many of the benefits we gain from certain products or processes come with “things that bite back.” This means that there is always some form of rebound effect, some unforeseen consequence for the individual, the collective, society, or the environment, and that this can hinder the access to well-being for individuals here and in the present, in other sectors or locales, or for generations yet to be born. The dynamics of the creation and destruction of well-being are complex. A product may make people’s lives easier yet its production come at the cost of the health or dignity of workers. A process can make access to health easier, but remain restricted to the upper segment of society and therefore increase social tensions. A good may seem miraculous in its improvement to people’s lives and, a certain way, to their wellbeing, yet its ecological footprint hinder future generations from achieving their own well-being. Social sciences, economics, thermodynamics, and environmental sciences: all are united in instructing us that nothing comes for free. Tarde and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7_13

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Schumpeter, the great theoreticians of innovation, have well expressed that an innovation entails simultaneously the creation of a new world and the destruction of the old. The work in this book has consisted in finding the juste milieu, the right balance between two extreme positions, one that refuses any novelty for fear of the new or romanticism towards the past, and one which pursues progress with eyes tightly closed. One way to do this is to try to predict, as far as possible, the unforeseen consequences: and we argue that this would indeed be feasible if smart people were put in the same room and tasked to reach a good, reasonable solution (which is actually the case for many situations). This approach is a tribute to the Aristotelian ethos, which so often finds the right balance between extreme positions. When the hedonists were fighting the anti-pleasure doctrine of Plato, Aristotle said that pleasures could be good but not if they come at any cost. He also added that some pleasures are higher in essence than others. To the two doctrines set in such blunt opposition, Aristotle finds a third way, which makes sense as a means to guide individuals towards a well-lived life. The same holds for innovation. Can we be enlightened by progress without being dazzled by it? The road to positive innovation, a form of innovation that would most increase the happiness for the greatest number of people and for the longest time, is paved with challenges and difficulties; we hope in this book to have provided some reflections that will help us travel in that direction.

Index

A Artificial intelligence (AI), 17, 68–70

B Bright side of innovation, 8, 14, 15

G Good enough innovation, 74 Good life, 13–15, 26, 28, 29, 41, 77, 83, 88 Green city, 28 Growth, 6, 7, 14, 15, 17, 21, 25–27, 33, 59, 61, 69, 81–83

C Care, 9, 33, 34, 70, 77–79, 83 Creative, 6, 9, 15, 16, 19, 21, 57–62 city, 19 classes, 19, 21 goods, 9, 34, 81–84, 90 Creativity, 8, 13, 19, 27, 42, 44, 53, 58, 61, 81

H Happiness, 3, 4, 7–9, 13–17, 19–21, 25–29, 33–37, 44, 53, 54, 57, 59, 69–71, 75, 78, 81, 83–85, 87, 88, 90, 96 Happy city, 28

D Dark side of innovation, 13, 15, 17 Destruction, 6, 9, 15, 21, 25, 27, 51, 52, 57–62, 95, 96 Digital, 3, 13, 29, 36, 37, 87

I Information and Communication Technology (ICT), 3, 5, 17, 18, 25, 33–37, 83, 87 Innovations, ix, 3–6, 8, 9, 13–21, 25–27, 33, 34, 41–44, 51, 54, 57–59, 61, 68, 70, 73–75, 77–79, 81, 83, 85, 87–90, 95, 96 Internet, 18, 29, 33–35, 37

E Entrepreneurs, 8, 14, 19–21, 44, 61, 68, 95 Environments, 6, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 29, 34, 36, 41–44, 54, 61, 68, 70, 78, 87, 88, 95 Externalities, 6, 15

F Flow, 7, 19, 20, 87 Frugal, 9, 33, 73–75

L Luddism, 9, 25, 52–54

M Machines, 26, 51, 53, 58 Markets, 4, 44, 52, 54, 60, 73–75, 78 Modern, 4, 14, 25, 28, 29, 36, 37, 53, 75, 82, 83 Modernity, 4, 14, 52, 82

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Brulé, F. Munier, Happiness, Technology and Innovation, SpringerBriefs in WellBeing and Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82685-7

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98 N Neoluddism, 53, 54 Noxious effects, 13, 17, 18

P Perverse effects, 17 Positive innovation, 6, 8, 9, 34, 83, 85–90, 96 Preferences, 15, 16, 34, 89 Progress, 3, 6, 14–16, 25, 27–29, 51, 60, 61, 68, 69, 85, 90, 96 Public innovations, 5, 16, 17

Index Smartphones, 35, 36 Social innovations, 5, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17, 41–44, 74, 75 Social media, 5, 18, 33, 34, 53, 54 Subjective well-being (SWB), 3, 6, 8, 13–16, 18–20, 27, 28, 33–36, 42–44, 51, 53, 54, 59–62, 69, 70, 81, 85–87, 90 Sustainable, 29, 36, 41, 74, 77, 86–88

R Resonance, 9, 34, 37, 81–84 Revenge effects, 13, 15, 61

T Technological, 3–5, 14, 15, 17, 18, 25–29, 41, 42, 52, 53, 57, 59, 70, 77, 83, 90 Technologies, 3–6, 8, 13, 15, 17, 18, 25–29, 34–37, 41, 52–54, 59, 61, 67–71, 74, 75, 82, 87, 89, 90 Transhumanism, 9, 33, 67–71, 89

S Satisfaction, 8, 16, 18, 20, 21, 27, 34, 35, 75, 78, 82, 83, 90 Side effects, 13, 61 Smart cities, 28

W Well-being, ix, 3, 6–8, 13–21, 25, 27–29, 33–37, 42, 43, 51, 53, 54, 59–62, 69, 71, 74, 75, 78, 81, 83, 85, 86, 90, 95