No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Strategic Alignment of Multinational Corporations for Frugal Innovation—A Case Study
Abstract
The phenomenon of frugal innovation gains increasing attention among practitioners and academics. However, the literature on frugal innovation is still in its infancy, lacking theoretically grounded studies to explore why and how multinational corporations (MNCs) apply this innovation approach. We propose that frugal innovation holds cross-departmental and cross-market learning potential for multinational corporations. The organizational learning theory offers a fruitful perspective to investigate the underlying motivation of MNCs to engage in frugal innovation and to examine how frugal innovation can be implemented in firms’ global operations. Given the scarce empirical literature on frugal innovation, we decided to apply an explorative research agenda. As the healthcare industry is a vital breeding ground for frugal innovation, we gain in-depth insights into frugal innovation through a multi-case study of Siemens Healthineers projects. From our case study, we develop a comprehensive framework to depict the factors that drive and hinder MNCs’ engagement in frugal innovation from an internal as well as an external perspective. Furthermore, we suggest a five-step approach to align frugal innovation with traditional innovation in MNCs’ innovation strategy. Our approach includes full management support (Step 1), carving-out a frugal innovation satellite from the organization (Step 2), establishing of corresponding interfaces (Step 3), feeding-back information from the corporate level to the frugal innovation team (Step 4), and feeding-forward best practices and innovations from the frugal innovation team to the corporate level (Step 5). This study provides valuable implications for practitioners in MNCs, offering a hands-on approach to leverage the benefits of frugal innovation while exploiting traditional innovation know-how. Additionally, our research fosters academic understanding of the underlying motivations of MNCs to engage in frugal innovation. Our findings open promising avenues for further research, including longitudinal qualitative and large-scale quantitative investigations.
... Poverty, climate change and related changes in the availability of resources shape societies as a whole, weaken existing regimes and may bring about a change towards more frugality. As of today, these factors seem to affect emerging economies more strongly [1,84] and advanced economies less. India, for example, suffers from persistent poverty and from high levels of pollution [72,85], which can lead to an everyday increase in awareness of both problems and the application of frugal design principles. ...
Existing research on frugal innovations underrates the potential for sustainability that arises from the development of advanced frugal innovations (AFI) and the widespread adoption of frugal design principles. Based on a distinction between advanced and unrefined frugal innovations, this article examines factors for AFI generation using the concept of innovation systems and the multi-level perspective, and discusses the differences arising from the contexts of emerging and advanced economies. The paper explains which institutional and systemic conditions support the development of advanced frugal innovations. In particular, it discusses the interplay of the actors, a common frugal mindset, and the institutional framework. The way these factors play out depends on the system and transition conditions in advanced and emerging economies. The paper shows that applying the perspective of AFI and frugal design principles opens a new perspective for research on frugal innovation.
Previous studies have discussed extensively the development of business solutions in resource‐constrained environments. However, understanding how local entrepreneurs engaged in environmental innovation can overcome resource constraints at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) remains an under‐researched area. Under the theoretical framework of bricolage, this study thus adopts a cross‐sector multiple case study approach to provide empirical evidence on how social and environmental entrepreneurs in Kenya design low‐cost solutions to environmental problems and for people at the BOP. The study considers environmental bricolage as a method of innovation ingenuity for social‐environmental entrepreneurs. Network, marketing, waste material, and skills and knowledge bricolage are identified as mechanisms for addressing resource challenges by social and environmental entrepreneurs when creating low‐cost and superior‐value solutions at the BOP. The study further highlights the critical role of boundary‐spanning organizations, the government, external knowledge, and technology.
The phenomenon of frugal innovation, as characterized by “affordable excellence”, is experiencing increasing acceptance by business leaders, policy makers and scholars around the world. Frugal products, services and technologies strive to radically increase affordability while significantly reducing their environmental footprint through careful and prudent use of resources. It is expected that frugal solutions will be increasingly necessary in both the developed and developing world to ensure social inclusion, environmental sustainability and continued economic growth.
Traditionally, frugality has been regarded as a social virtue in India and the socio-cultural context of the country provides a fertile environment for the development of frugal products and services. Not surprisingly, considerable research shows that discussions of frugal innovations have been closely associated with India. This concept has now begun to spread to other developing and industrialized nations. A primary objective of this conceptual paper is to showcase how frugal innovations emanating from India have found acceptance in other corners of the world and why they contribute to India’s soft power on a global stage.
We argue that frugal innovations can potentially provide a useful medium for a benevolent power that aims to promote peaceful coexistence, inclusive growth and prosperity around the world. Indian firms and policymakers should not become complacent about their existing businesses and fail to comprehend the importance of frugal innovation. They would be well advised to retain their focus on creating customer value and avoid falling prey to the dominant logic of potentially wasteful, unsustainable and exclusive innovation approaches. Instead of focusing on delivering “more for more for few” they should rather continue to focus on delivering “more for less for many”. The demand for affordable and sustainable excellence is sure to grow globally and India can establish itself as a global soft power in the process.
Frugal innovations aim at the development of basic solutions that are affordable for price-sensitive customer groups. This article looks at the similarities and differences between two major approaches, corporate and grassroot frugal innovation, and identifies initial ideas on how the two streams can learn from each other. The three pillars of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social) provide one of the guidelines for the comparison. The research is based on an analysis of case studies from various industries, six of which are presented in this article.
Creating new products or adapting existing ones to fit with specific customer requirements from regional as well as emerging markets is a challenging issue for competitive companies that work to maintain acceptable market share rates. Besides the importance of providing original solutions tailored to the target market characteristics, companies should consider their production strategy as a key factor for reaching frugality objectives under regional constraints. The co-evolution of product and production network aims to provide a concurrent design and management of product architecture, local production systems, and OEM–suppliers relationships. This paper proposes a modular-based approach as an application of the mirroring hypothesis for supporting the co-definition of product structure and supplier network. Supplier selection and evaluation method for frugal innovation perspective is proposed as a key part of the proposed approach and applied in an industrial use case for validation.
Based on diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory and economic consumption analysis as well as the concept of frugal innovation, this study develops an extended DOI model that theorizes the characteristics of the diffusion of frugal information communication technologies (ICTs) and their impacts on the Internet diffusion. This model posits that frugal digital ICTs diffuse more rapidly in developing countries than in developed countries and significantly bridge the digital divide between them. The diffusion of frugal smartphones is investigated as a case of the diffusion of frugal digital ICTs, which provides empirical evidence for the theoretical model presented herein. Keywords: Frugal innovation, Diffusion of innovation, Information communication technology, Digital divide, Smartphone
This paper examines the product innovation management strategy of a developed economy multinational corporation (MNC) case in India. Drawing on institutional theory, the analysis indicates that product innovation for emerging markets is essentially built on the frugal innovation capabilities of a firm. The findings show that through frugal engineering, bricolage, and modularity, it is possible to implement frugal innovation that creates value with less resource and at low costs. Further, the analysis shows how developing a collaborative ecosystem along with a deep embeddedness in the local economy facilitates frugal innovation. The paper has important implications for theory and management practice.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306307018762698
Keywords:
Product innovation,emerging markets, frugal innovation, collaborative ecosystem
In this paper, we explore knowledge transfer in the context of frugal innovation (i.e., a specific form of resource-constraint innovation). Based on original data from 11 case studies, we observe two distinct clusters. Firms in the cluster ‘active’ are signified by their direct experience in the target market. Companies in the cluster ‘non-active’ were not physically present in the target market prior to the frugal initiative. Further, three distinct phases emerged along the value creation process: 1) market research; 2) development; 3) go-to-market. It became evident that firms from the cluster non-active are confronted much more with an influx and outflow of knowledge. Transfer in both directions requires significantly more effort. With this research we contribute to the growing body of literature on frugal innovation and the emerging middle class. We conclude this study with a discussion of the implications of our findings for management practice and research.
This article sets the scene for a special issue on why frugal innovations are increasingly important for development research. While the top-down business and management literature on frugal innovation has claimed developmental relevance, we give at least equal importance to much longer-standing bottom-up development studies discourses on grass-root innovation, bricolage, and livelihood strategies. We argue that we need both literatures for a better understanding of how frugal innovations relate to development. Accordingly, we position the articles in this special issue in the frugal innovation and development debate. Finally, we discuss the relevance of a frugal innovation lens in how two major global trends are impacting upon global development opportunities: the global diffusion of 3rd and 4th Industrial Revolution digital technologies and global population dynamics. We consider these two trends to be major entries for future research on frugal innovation and development.
Research Summary
This research uses insights from field theory to explore the early moments of how entrepreneurial ecosystems form through everyday interactions. We examine the cultural-cognitive and material micro-dynamics of activities occurring in support of social impact entrepreneurs and businesses from 2000 to 2014 in the Seattle WA region using archival and interview data sources. The pattern of results about what actors do and how interactions change over time supports a two-period model of ecosystem formation where initial distributed and disparate activity undergoes a phase transition to coalesce into a more coordinated and integrated social order. The findings point to endogenous sources of structuring, including language and interaction, rather than exogenous sources such as government action or instrumental policy goals.
Managerial Summary
How do the ecosystems that support entrepreneurs form? Rather than being created through top-down actions of governments and other powerful actors, we argue that entrepreneurial ecosystems form through the everyday interactions of individuals striving to create shared meaning, resources and infrastructure needed to support their new ventures. This is especially true in ecosystems focused on creating social impact, which don’t always offer the high returns expected in a market-based capitalistic system. Our study shows how the initial activities of distributed, disparate individuals and groups rather suddenly coalesce into more coordinated, integrated and durable patterns of social interaction, creating the methods, resources and legitimacy needed for an entrepreneurial ecosystem for social impact businesses to coexist with or change existing conventions of market-based capitalism.
The healthcare sector stands to benefit most from frugal innovation, the idea that more can be done for less for many more people, globally. As a first step for health systems to leverage new approaches to offset escalating health expenditures and to improve health outcomes, the most relevant frugal innovations have to be found. The Institute of Global Health Innovation was commissioned by the US-based Commonwealth Fund to identify frugal innovations from around the world that could, if transferred to the USA, offer approaches for expanding access to care and dramatically lower costs. Our global scan was motivated by the need to extend the list of frugal innovations in healthcare beyond the impressive but oft-repeated examples such as GE’s MAC 400, a US$800 portable ECG machine, Narayana’s US$1500 cardiac surgery and Aravind’s US$30 cataract surgery. Our search involved (1) scanning innovation databases, (2) refining frameworks to identify frugal innovations and evaluate their reverse potential and (3) developing in-depth case studies. From 520 possible innovations, we shortlisted 16 frugal innovations that we considered as frugal and with potential for reverse diffusion into high-income country health systems. Our global search was narrowed down to three care delivery models for case analysis: The Brazilian Family Health Strategy around community health workers; Singapore-based GeriCare@North use of telemedicine and Brazil’s Saude Crianca community involvement and citizenship programme. We share core features of the three frugal innovations and outline lessons for practitioners, scholars and policymakers seeking to lower healthcare costs while increasing access and quality.
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to propose a conceptual model of frugal innovation and how it is linked to value creation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was exploratory in nature whereby previous studies were explored to identify the dimensions of frugal innovation. The studies were explored from selected databases including Google Scholar and ProQuest using the key word search, “Frugal innovation”, “Jugaad innovation”, “Value creation” and “Environmental munificence”. The Review process included the studies from 1991 to 2017.
Findings
The study suggests that frugal innovation is a multidimensional construct with affordability, simplicity, quality, sustainability, resilience, management support and defeaturing as its dimensions. The study found that frugal innovation is an important predictor of value creation. The study also proposes the moderating effect of environmental munificence on the relationship between frugal innovation and value creation.
Practical implications
The study invokes entrepreneurs, academicians, and managers to be more inclined towards the bottom of the pyramid by utilizing fewer resources. The Study contributes to the strategic entrepreneurship literature by developing a conceptual framework of frugal innovation and linking it to the value creation.
Originality/value
The conceptual framework proposed is based on selected dimensions which seem to be lacking due to various conceptualizations and meanings in the literature. The study is the first of its kind which have proposed the dimensions of frugal innovation.
Frugal innovation in the context of developed economies has witnessed increasing interest in recent years. For multinational companies (MNCs) emerging markets represent promising opportunities for growth on the one hand and the threat of new local competitors on the other hand. Successfully mastering this challenge means that MNCs have to challenge prevailing paradigms within their organizations. Frugal innovation scholars have suggested that these companies have to develop a frugal mindset to succeed in frugal innovation. To address this issue and to advance the discussion, we conducted conceptual work and a systematic literature review of 80 publications in the frugal innovation field. Building on insights from social psychology we suggest that individuals will be more motivated to perform tasks that contribute to goals, which they perceive as desirable and feasible. This assessment is conducted with a deliberative mindset in a pre-actional phase. After a decision is made, individuals adopt an implemental mindset and focus on a potential course of action. We build on this theoretical distinction and lay out how mindsets might impact organizations ability to (1) establish a strategic importance of innovating for cost conscious consumers, especially in emerging markets (2) deepen the understanding of cognitively remote customers’ needs, wants and use-contexts and (3) satisfy these specific customers’ needs with frugal solutions.
In numerous industries, companies are challenged by increasing resource scarcity, severe waste problems, and the necessity to minimize the environmental impact of their operations. At the same time, companies need to cope with a heightened price sensitivity among consumers. Frugal products, such as the extremely durable d.light solar lantern, the entry-level version of the TATA Swach water purifier, or the rubber-based prosthesis Jaipur Leg represent a suitable means to address these challenges. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, product frugality remains underexplored from both an academic and managerial perspective. In this multi-method study, the authors develop a comprehensive conceptualization and operationalization of product frugality. Based on a thorough analysis of multi-source and multi-country data, the authors define product frugality as a set of product characteristics that particularly appeals to consumers who, by necessity or choice, value products with a low cost of consumption that, at the same time, are sustainable, simple, and offer basic quality. Applying established procedures of index construction to a large and diverse set of consumer data from the U.S., the U.K., Germany, India, and South Africa (n = 2,398), the authors develop and validate an index of product frugality. The results depict product frugality as a formative construct with four dimensions: cost of consumption, sustainability, simplicity, and basic quality. The findings point out that low cost and environmental sustainability have to be combined rather than weighed against each other to create truly frugal products. The present study generates a common understanding of product frugality that acknowledges the multi-dimensional nature of this construct. Nomological examination of the developed index reveals that product frugality increases consumers’ willingness to generate word of mouth. This research proffers guidance for managers seeking to explore the potential of frugal products in addressing consumers’ need for higher value products while minimizing environmental impact.
Frugal innovation is often associated with (ecological and social) sustainability because it is characterized by minimizing the use of resources (raw material, production resources, energy, fuel, water, waste, financial resources), it is more affordable, and better accessible than conventional innovations. My paper contributes a comprehensive literature overview on the connection between frugal innovation and sustainability. I address the used definitions of frugal innovation and sustainability, and outline the potentials and threats of frugal innovation for sustainability. My research approach is a two-step procedure, consisting of a literature review according to Cooper (focusing on the steps of data collection and data evaluation) and a qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. For data collection and data evaluation, I searched various databases with selected keywords. The 14 identified texts were analyzed with a qualitative content analysis in the type of inductive category development. All texts examined describe a positive connection between frugal innovation and sustainability and/or potentials of frugal innovation for sustainability. Just under half of the authors outline negative connections between frugal innovation and sustainability and/or threats of frugal innovation for sustainability. Based on the results it can be noted, that frugal innovation is inherently socially and economically sustainable. In view of the empirical negations of the inherence of ecological sustainability in frugal innovation, I recommend the use of the term “ecological sustainable frugal innovation” for frugal innovation with a positive connection to ecological sustainability. Research implications and issues for future research relating to ecological sustainable frugal innovation, like voluntary simplicity, degrowth, (alternative to) planned obsolescence, and circular economy are presented.
The technological revolution of the previous 20-25 years, especially the one brought about by the Internet and other telecommunication technologies, has led to the creation of general purpose technologies (GPTs) that facilitate high quality, easy-to-use and cost-effective solutions (Teece, 2018). The ensuing “democratization of innovation” has led millions of individuals across the world to turn into innovators (von Hippel, 2005). The availability of vastly affordable communication at high bandwidth – in conjunction with globalization – has set free innovational and entrepreneurial spirit that was never possible before in the memory of the humanity.
O objetivo desse artigo é analisar como têm sido desenvolvidas inovações em produtos para consumidores na base da pirâmide no contexto brasileiro. Para isso, foi adotada a estratégia de estudo de casos múltiplos em três empresas de diferentes setores. Evidenciou-se que as empresas pesquisadas utilizam o modelo sequencial de estruturação e gerenciamento do desenvolvimento de novos produtos, as inovações direcionadas para a base da pirâmide brasileira são disruptivas de novo mercado e as empresas utilizam múltiplas estratégias de inovação para implementar inovações no mercado brasileiro da base da pirâmide. Os resultados contribuem para ampliar o entendimento sobre os tipos, dimensões e características tanto das inovações quanto das estratégias de inovações empreendidas para atender ao mercado consumidor da baixa renda no contexto brasileiro.
In order to adhere to the concept of sustainable development, firms are increasingly expected to develop innovations that reconcile economic, environmental, and social goals (i.e., sustainable innovations). However, achieving this goal is not straightforward, and although several studies have attempted to improve our understanding of sustainable innovation, a systematization of extant findings is lacking. Therefore, this paper conducts a literature review with the objective of organizing previous research regarding sustainable innovation. A systematic approach is adopted, identifying 69 relevant articles. These articles are organized according to three key perspectives: internal managerial, external relational, and performance evaluation. The results demonstrate that the first perspective, incorporating diverse managerial aspects, is the most considered, whereas the second and third perspectives remain underdeveloped. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.
This paper explores which are the drivers and their interactions that can lead organizations to adopt radical sustainable innovation (SI) in unfavorable contexts. We identify external and internal drivers of SI adoption, and we conceptualize sustainable intrapreneurship as an additional driver. We report and discuss the findings from a case study in the water sector based on interviews and secondary data collected among eleven water utilities in Israel, Italy, and Spain. We provide new insights on how interactions between external and internal drivers can generate dynamic cycles that gradually shift utilities from a reactive to an embedding and system change approach in adopting SI. Within this process, networks and sustainable intrapreneurship act as interactive drivers that catalyze internal and external drivers. The study links testable propositions in a conceptual model describing the dynamics triggering SI adoption and argues for the relevance of sustainable intrapreneurship for addressing the systemic nature, complexity, and ambiguity of SI adoption.
In this book, the author shares his experiences, anecdotes, insights and failures while inventing medical devices in India over the last six years. The idea is to give entrepreneurs (clinicians, engineers, designers, business professionals) a realistic expectation of the time, money, co-ordination and teamwork required to develop a medical device in India. This book includes case studies, anecdotes, caricatures and a special how I do it section at the end of the book that gives step-by-step guidelines on how to identify a need, make clinical observations, create need statements, perform needs filtering, develop criteria, conceptualize a solution and take it to a proof of concept. This book is recommended for all Indian healthcare professionals, engineers and product designers who seek to solve unmet clinical challenges with new medical devices, but are unsure of how to go about taking their idea from the concept stage to an actual product. This book illustrates ways for engineers and designers to formally engage with doctors, and gives a comprehensive perspective of the path from ideation to commercialization.
Cambridge Core - Economic Development and Growth - Frugal Innovation - by Yasser Bhatti
Established theory suggests that firms experiment with business models in dynamic contexts. However, the relationship between business model experimentation and organisational performance remains unclear. For this purpose, we propose an assessment of the economic value of business model experimentation in dynamic contexts by defining the unit of analysis at the industry level. Analysis draws upon a unique panel dataset from the recorded music industry composed of 414 observations from 32 countries for the period 1998-2010. The results show two optimal modes for maximising value capture in dynamic contexts. First, if a dominant format exists, a 'network' effect becomes prevalent which has a positive impact upon revenue. Second, when firms engage in experimentation leading to a highly diversified set of business models the industry sector becomes better able to capture value from diverse and changing consumer needs.
In both academia and the press, Frugal Innovation has been gaining more space and attention from researchers and managers, mainly for showing itself as an alternative for competitiveness in times of crisis and increasingly scarce resources. Despite the growing number of published articles on Frugal Innovation, there are still a lack of instruments that allow the measurement and quantification of this phenomenon in order to allow more precise and quantifiable studies to be carried out. The objective of this study is to propose a measurement instrument for Frugal Innovation, presenting the preliminary results of the first steps in the process of scale development. A broad review of the literature is presented, as well as an analysis of the construct dimensionality and a definition for Frugal Innovation are proposed. Data were collected from 191 Brazilian companies and through the Factorial Exploratory Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory (CFA), a second order scale formed by three dimensions and composed by 9 items is presented in this first phase, together with the adjustment of all statistical indices. Another collecting data was realized with 247 Brazilians firms, and another two surveys are running currently with 500 Americans and Mexicans firms for final validation of this scale.
The value-capture problem for innovators in the digital economy involves some different challenges from those in the industrial economy. It inevitably requires understanding the dynamics of platforms and ecosystems. These challenges are amplified for enabling technologies, which are the central focus of this article. The innovator of an enabling technology has a special business model challenge because the applicability to many downstream verticals forecloses, as a practical matter, ownership of all the relevant complements. Complementary assets (vertical and lateral) in the digital context are no longer just potential value-capture mechanisms (through asset price appreciation or through preventing exposure to monopolistic bottleneck pricing by others); they may well be needed simply for the technology to function. Technological and innovational complementors present both coordination and market design challenges to the innovator that generally lead to market failure in the form of an excess of social over private returns. The low private return leads to socially sub-optimal underinvestment in future R&D that can be addressed to some extent by better strategic decision-making by the innovator and/or by far-sighted policies from government and the judiciary.
The default value-capture mechanism for many enabling technologies is the licensing of trade secrets and/or patents. Licensing is shown to be a difficult business model to implement from a value-capture perspective. When injunctions for intellectual property infringement are hard to win, or even to be considered, the incentives for free riding by potential licensees are considerable. Licensing is further complicated if it involves standard essential patents, as both courts and policy makers may fail to understand that development of a standard involves components of both interoperability and technology development. If a technology standard is not treated as the embodiment of significant R&D efforts enabling substantial new downstream economic activity, then rewards are likely to be calibrated too low to support appropriate levels of future innovation.
Addressing resource-constrained customers in emerging markets presents business opportunities beyond local market borders. Multinational corporations can leverage innovations developed for emerging markets to serve customer needs unsatisfied by traditional offerings in developed markets. Little research explores the drivers in the transfer of innovations from emerging to developed markets, a process referred to as reverse innovation. Applying an explorative approach to data drawn from in-depth interviews, archival inquiries, and a manager workshop involving companies from multiple countries and industries, this study derives a comprehensive conceptualization of reverse innovation, proposes a process-oriented approach to reverse innovation, and defines three categories of drivers: structural, cultural, and resource-related. Managing these diverse drivers will enable multinational companies to invert the innovation-flow paradigm successfully.
Exciting articles, analyses and practical examples describe how to get started with digitalization and handle the technologies involved, the potential offered by the cloud, the importance of the right partnerships and which factors are most critical to success, particularly as regards quality and security. Why will the cloud soon take the driver’s seat in our cars, and why does Heineken’s long-term CIO Anne Teague say that innovation is impossible without high-quality IT? What can German IT managers learn from Silicon Valley or China, how much does Telekom CEO Tim Höttges think Europe is dependent on successful digitalization, and why does T-Systems director Dr. Ferri Abolhassan view the cloud as the essential backbone of digital transformation? This book is the first to bring together a variety of perspectives and present a 360° view of digitalization. Renowned authors illustrate how industry representatives view the digital transformation of our economy. Its most important component is the cloud! And digitalization and cloud-based processes are the main business drivers of the 21st century.
Contents
• How Germany and Europe can benefit from digitalization
• The cloud as the growth driver of digitalization
• Field reports from China and Silicon Valley
• Practical examples
The Editor
Dr. Ferri Abolhassan is a member of the T-Systems Board of Management, responsible for the IT Division and Telekom Security.
Bringing value to end consumers is one of the main challenges for businesses in emerging markets. This paper examines the role of information technology (IT) advancements in frugal innovation and in influencing new business models to bring frugal innovations within reach of the poor. A thorough review of theoretical concepts of business models and their applicability to the Bottom-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) literature and frugal innovation is given. IT has three characteristics that have influenced both business models and frugal innovation. First IT reduces transaction costs, sensor prices have decreased, and IT's externalities have increased the economic and social value from one innovation. By discussing the case of a high-technology low cost weather sensor system deployed in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper demonstrates how IT has introduced new frugal innovations, and influenced new business models. The success of the weather station diffusion has been due to the value of the weather data generated, the adaptive business model, and the co-creation approach throughout the station and business model design. IT has played a strong part in diffusing new innovations in Africa, but also has the potential to exclude certain groups. Future research should explore how IT and frugal innovation can lead to inclusion.
This research questions how social media use affords new forms of organizing and collective engagement. The concept of connective action has been introduced to characterize such new forms of collective engagement in which actors coproduce and circulate content based upon an issue of mutual interest. Yet, how the use of social media actually affords connective action still needed to be investigated. Mixed methods analyses of microblogging use during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill bring insights onto this question and reveal in particular how multiple actors enacted emerging and interdependent roles with their distinct patterns of feature use. The findings allow us to elaborate upon the concept of connective affordances as collective level affordances actualized by actors in team interdependent roles. Connective affordances extend research on affordances as a relational concept by considering not only the relationships between technology and users but also the interdependence type among users and the effects of this interdependence onto what users can do with the technology. This study contributes to research on social media use by paying close attention to how distinct patterns of feature use enact emerging roles. Adding to IS scholarship on the collective use of technology, it considers how the patterns of feature use for emerging groups of actors are intricately and mutually related to each other.
Many cookstove designs and biochar programs have been implemented in many countries around the world. These programs have had varied degrees of success which is generally low. Some were able to achieve all their target objectives, others achieved a fraction of their target objectives whiles others achieved different results from their initial targets. The low success rates have been attributed to disregard for various users' considerations by the past implementers of such designs and programs. This study seeks to determine the factors and features that Ghana cookstove users want to be incorporated in the designs of their cookstove and biochar programs. The study used a nationwide survey of household cooks. It was found that about 99% of the respondents will prefer a smokeless cook stove. The challenges that they will want eliminated from the conventional cooking systems are ranked from the highest to the lowest as: smoke and heat (35.80%), difficulty in use (21.8%), cost of cooking systems (6.8%), faulty parts (3.1%), and fuel availability (2.90%). About 83% of the respondents have no idea of the use of charcoal as a soil amendment tool (biochar), which presents an opportunity to educate the communities about the potential of biochar to improve soil fertility and quality. This paper therefore recommends that future cookstove designers, researchers and biochar programs implementers consider elimination of smoke and heat as well as fuel availability ahead of the other factors considered in the design of cookstoves.
Frugal innovation has recently become a relevant topic in the public domain. The real challenge for frugal innovation is to introduce something new or different (innovating) whilst being sparing with resources (frugal). Traditionally, it has been investigated in relation to emerging and developing countries. However, scholars and institutions have pointed out that the phenomenon is growing in relevance in advanced economies too. As a consequence, some scholars have started soliciting attempts to systematize this emerging field of research. Based on these premises, the study aims to: explore how the frugal innovation concept has developed over the years; analyze the main key findings from the extant literature on frugal innovation to lay a foundation for subsequent works, by identifying gaps in current knowledge; highlight new directions for future research. In doing so, we carried out a systematic literature review (SLR) and analyzed 113 articles that have been published since 1990. We asked experts to validate the main research gaps we had identified through the SLR. As a whole, results show that experts identify - for both emerging and developing countries and for advanced economies - various relevant future research directions.
The Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations recognize and promote inter- and intra-dependencies between the economic, social and ecological dimensions, emphasize the inclusion of local communities in the development processes and the need for sustainable consumption and production. To achieve these goals, interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts are needed. Frugal innovation emerges as a paradigm challenging traditional innovation pathways which may have the potential to bring together different stakeholders’ efforts to achieve sustainable development goals. This systematic literature review analyzes current research linking the concepts of frugal innovation and sustainable development. The aim is to highlight approaches and conditions in which frugal innovations can drive sustainable development, especially in relation to different types of private sector actors. Based on the content analysis of current studies, we formulate shortcomings of existing research and develop a research agenda with the aim to bring the two research streams closer. © 2017 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI)