Inter-firm dialogue as a driver of responsible innovation

The emergence of corporate social responsibility first occurred in large companies. The territorial logic that spreads concomitantly appears as the corollary of globalization and the territorial responsibility of the firms is put into question. This article argues that the development of certain types of inter-firm trade, particularly outside their global value chain, could encourage the spread of societal practices. We analyzed during several months the dyadic CSR relationships of three business-to-business asymmetrical tandems. Our approach confirms the impact of normative impulsions and illustrates the recent work about territorial CSR dialogues. It enables us to sketch a relationship between the characterization of these business-to-business dialogues and the nature of the generated CSR resources. The inter-firm co-responsibility dialogue also opens up a new procedural approach to operationalizing the concept of responsible innovation. JEL Codes: D9, M14, L26, D22