Today, whether in the world of health, social, work and many others, innovation is almost everywhere. Unfortunately, many projects are built far from the reality. Without taking into consideration the opinions or the ideas of the future users. However, the success of these projects is dependent on the adoption by individuals of news practices or tools. It is important for these projects to understand how to gain acceptance and thus promote behavior change.
It’s interesting for that to study the differences between the concept of social acceptance and social acceptability. Their comparison will give to the teams a first line of thought during the innovation process. If it doesn’t exist a consensus about them, we note a general trend in the literature. According to Garnier (2015), social acceptance refers to take a favorable position regarding a more or less concretized project. In relation to the chronology of the project, this notion occurs after the creation of the new practices or tools. While the notion of social acceptability, as defined by Depraz (2016), concerns a set of criteria and prerequisites to social acceptance of development projects. So, this notion come sinto play during the process. Another definition, given by the Conseil Patronal de l’Environnement du Québec (C.P.E.Q.), goes in this direction by proposing social acceptability as “the result of a process by wich each parts concerned build together the minimum conditions to be implemented, for a project, program or policy to integrate harmoniously and at a given moment into its natural and human environment. This definition therefore recommends to involve the target population in the project for a better acceptance of the project.
Thus, if the project team wishes to have their proposals accepted in the long terme, they must think about the social acceptability upstream of the proposed solution. And for this, the involvement of the population must be done as soon as possible (Ledoux et al., 2015 ; Milligan et al., 2009). This line of thought around this involvement and the collective construction are opportunities to think back our way of leading innovative projects. Especially by reducing the gape between field reality and theoretical fantasy.
Bibliographie :
- Conseil patronal de l’environnement du Québec, (C.P.E.Q.). (2012). Guide des bonnes pratiques afin de favoriser l’acceptabilité sociale des projets». https://www.cpeq.org/fr/guides/acceptabilite-sociale-des-projets/i-introduction
- Granier, B. (2015). L’expérimentation sociotechnique fondée sur les sciences comportementales : Un instrument au service de la production de l’acceptabilité sociale ? VertigO – la revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement, Volume 15 Numéro 3, Article Volume 15 Numéro 3. https://doi.org/10.4000/vertigo.16695
- Ledoux, L., Cornell, S., O’Riordan, T., Harvey, R., & Banyard, L. (2005). Towards sustainable flood and coastal management : Identifying drivers of, and obstacles to, managed realignment. Land Use Policy, 22(2), 129‑144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2004.03.001
- Milligan, J., O’Riordan, T., Nicholson-Cole, S. A., & Watkinson, A. R. (2009). Nature conservation for future sustainable shorelines : Lessons from seeking to involve the public. Land Use Policy, 26(2), 203‑213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2008.01.004