How Morally Contested Innovations are Legitimized?

Karim Ben Slimane (), Cédric Diridollou and Karim Hamadache
Additional contact information
Karim Ben Slimane: REGARDS - Recherches en Économie Gestion AgroRessources Durabilité Santé- EA 6292 - URCA - Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - MSH-URCA - Maison des Sciences Humaines de Champagne-Ardenne - URCA - Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper investigates how morally contested innovations emerge and spread within an organisational field and how entrepreneurs utilize strategies to legitimize them. Building on the insight derived from a case study of the cardboard coffin's introduction in the French funeral services field our findings show that proponents of morally contested innovations rely on three legitimation strategies: (1) they commit themselves in pragmatic legitimacy through targeting the peripheral players and the public, (2) they cope with cognitive legitimacy challenges by adapting the design of their product and by educating product users, (3) and they respond to moral concerns by reducing moral revulsion and re-enchanting the consumption practices. This study also highlights the importance of the interplay between these mutually reinforcing strategies in the adoption and the diffusion of morally contested innovations.

Keywords: innovation; legitimation strategies; morally contested fields; funeral services 2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-06-19
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.univ-reims.fr/hal-02948026
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in EURAM, Jun 2018, Reykjavik, Iceland

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.univ-reims.fr/hal-02948026/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02948026

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().