MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Avoiding Harm in Technology Innovation

To capitalize on emerging technologies while mitigating unanticipated consequences, innovation managers need to establish a systematic review process.

Advances in science and technology promise to solve some of the world’s most vexing problems, create new markets, and fuel economic growth. At the same time, they often raise ethical questions, and their deployment may lead to unanticipated adverse consequences that many companies are ill-equipped to identify or address.

For example, technology that enables the editing of human DNA is leading to new medical treatments, but the practice is also rife with unintended consequences. In 2018, an ambitious researcher in China ignored both the norms of the field and the law and altered human embryos’ genetic material in an effort to confer resistance to HIV. The changes he made to the embryos’ genes may be passed down to future generations, and their effects on human development are unknown.

About the Author

Tania Bucic is a professor of marketing at UNSW Sydney. Gina Colarelli O’Connor (@oconngina) is a professor of innovation management at Babson College.

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