Digitalisation and the Dark Side of Innovation

Rolf Rønning ^[1] and Siv Magnussen^[2] :

¹ Centre for Innovation in Services (CIS), Inland Norway University of Applied sciences

² Centre for care research, NTNU Gjøvik

Digitalisation and the dark side of innovation

Ken Loach`s brilliant movie « I, Daniel Blake» illustrates the dark side of innovation, seen from the perspective of an elderly person. The same technological solution may be to the better for some and to the worse for others. This is the main topic in our paper. The authors work with service innovations in Norwegian municipalities, and the paper will present findings from our ongoing projects about the development of innovation.

Most Western countries have a growing elderly population and declining birth rates. Innovation is a buzzword in many White Papers. For elderly care, more use of volunteers and new technological solutions seem to be the main innovative grips in many countries. Public innovations are part of the political struggle in society, but because technological innovations are seen as improvements and non-political, the political consequences are seldom mentioned - and frail groups may be losers.

A branch within public service innovation theory is using a public service dominant logic (PSDL). Here, the user is recognized as an active co-producer of services (Osborne, Radnor & Nasi 2016). Developing digital services this way is quite contrary to the situation today where most digital services are introduced top-down. Thus, more user involvement can be an important step for reducing the number of Daniel Blake’s in the future. The paper ends with a discussion of how a PSDL-approach can be to the better for the digital illiterate elderly, together with an acceptance of digitalisation as part of the political struggle in society.