Innovating with consumer with disabilities: the ethical challenges of an inclusive innovation process

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The United Nations Report on disabilities documents the limited access to education, employment and social life for persons with disabilities (PWD) and underlines the importance of including them in the definition of inclusive solutions.There are many initiatives to include PWD in various areas of daily life like employment (Patricia Thornton and Neil Lunt, 1997), educational adaptations (Winter & O’Raw, 2010) and standards building (Grosbois, 2010). Product innovation might be part of these initiatives as Desmond et al. (2018) proved the benefits of involving them in the innovation process. More generally, consumers have been involved in the innovation processes for the last decades, through focus groups or co-creation activities. Such activities raise a significant number of ethical questions and issues (intellectual property, safety, privacy to name a few), which are significantly exacerbated in the case of PWD. Nevertheless very few research deals with potential ethical issues in inclusive innovation processes. In a context where corporate social responsibility urges companies to put ethics in every filed of their practice and to include PWD, examining the ethical issues raised by PWD involvement in the innovation phase can lead to a better understanding of cocreation practices and the requirements of inclusion in companies.