Resilience in Social Innovation: Lessons from Women Market Traders

Abstract

Objective. The article adopts a bottom-up approach to examine the factors that influence the design, development, and diffusion of social innovation. These factors pertain to sociocultural complexities that complicate the commercial environment. Methods. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of women market traders in Fijian informal marketplaces. These informal marketplaces are communal exchange arenas where many economically disadvantaged individuals come to make their living. Results. Findings highlight the resiliency of these traders in overcoming ambiguities and pressures that exist in these marketplaces. Conclusion. An understanding of women market traders' experimentation and strategies to manage daily tensions and policy-related contradictions can potentially open up ideas for innovative business practices.Social innovation initiatives, be they micro loans, mobile banking, or community sanitation projects, enrich millions of lives. Not all social innovation experiments prove successful, however, and many failures can be blamed on a poor understanding of the contexts in which social problems persist (Mulgan, 2006). When micro loans to female entrepreneurs, or solar stoves that change when food can be prepared, result in women being physically abused to the point of death, one readily identifiable cause of such tragedies is a lack of foresight among innovation promoters over how male heads of households would respond to innovation-induced changes to family dynamics (Freeman and Higginson, 2007). Without recognizing their biased or uninformed perspectives, innovation sponsors (profit and nonprofit) rush to implementation-perfect examples of top-down innovation gone bad (Brown and Wyatt, 2010). Although not all top-down initiatives fail, their potential individual-and societal-level costs seem high; and particularly when lower risk approaches, involving people who naturally anticipate second-order dangers from innovation, have been identified. Generally labeled a bottom-up approach (Manzini, 2014;Mulgan, 2006), the process calls for early engagement of the people that social innovations intend to benefit.Evoking classic product innovation concepts such voice of the customer (Griffin and Hauser, 1993), the bottom-up approach helps us elucidate the complex and highly fluid nature of relationships, roles, and rules in targeted underserved communities. These are factors that will undoubtedly lead to innovation success or failure, and that are often hidden from outsiders who are technologically proficient but only partially aware of the human dynamics involved. Innovation efforts can benefit greatly from the rich knowledge of local contexts and social forces that bottom-up approaches uncover, to say nothing of

Policy‐related implementational fluidity in subsistence marketplaces

“…Similarly, the role of the local community cannot be overseen. For instance, community‐driven agricultural practices can also lessen the burden on individual families and foster innovative supply chain strategies (Blättel‐Mink, Boddenberg, Gunkel, Schmitz, & Vaessen, 2017; Upadhyaya & Rosa, 2019). Family focused financial literacy programmes also provide a strong foundation for effective management of business operations (Marchant & Harrison, 2020) and provide a strong financial foundation for the next generation (Cui, Xiao, Yi, Porto, & Cai, 2019).…”

“…Post‐independence in 1970, Fiji's population incorporated three distinct social categories—European, Fijian and Indo‐Fijian. Ethnic inclusion also influences the regulatory organisation of economic activity, decisions on settlement patterns, access to resources (e.g., land) and political representation (Trnka, 2010, 2012; Upadhyaya & Rosa, 2019). Traders working in Fijian marketplaces buy and sell fresh fruits and vegetables and live a sustainable lifestyle involving farming practices and reducing food waste (Brombin, 2015).…”

“…SCMs represent individuals involved in different types of entrepreneurial activities throughout the world. Some examples include SCMs in Chennai, South India involved in small financial programmes in their local communities (Viswanathan, Echambadi, Venugopal, & Sridharan, 2014), Fijian traders who grow and sell vegetables and an assortment of homemade products (Upadhyaya & Rosa, 2019), SCMs in Bogotá, Colombia who offer a wide array of consumer products (Upadhyaya et al, 2013), women traders in Kumasi, Ghana (Clark, 2010) and Botswana (Ntseane, 2004) and those involved in various corporate‐backed community programs—Tata power collaborating with local women to manage electricity loss (Shrivastava, 2017) and Yakult Ladies system of connecting with local consumers (Chatterjee, 2018).…”