The social dimension of frugal innovation

Abstract

In the layperson's mind, the term frugal innovation evokes ideas of frugality and cheap solutions. Experts share a broader understanding of frugal innovation as the ability to do more with less by increasing business and social value (Radjou and Prabhu, 2014). Emerging researches focus on its strategic, technological and organisational aspects. However, the core of frugal innovation is its social dimension, yet this has generally been overlooked. The aim of this paper is to explore the social dimension by showing the potential of frugal innovation to prompt social innovation. Empirical material derived from four case studies of frugal innovation illustrates this strong social dimension. Frugal innovation adds value by producing solutions cheaper than the alternatives, and allows non-consumers to become consumers, which itself is social innovation. This paper presents a novel view of frugal innovation and social innovation as closely related. The umbrella term socially driven innovation is suggested to incorporate both social and frugal innovation.

Frugal innovation: Antecedents, mediators, and consequences

“…• New employment opportunities (Leliveld & Knorringa, 2018;Rao, 2013;Rosca et al, 2017) • New business models and forms of entrepreneurship (Basu et al, 2013;Brem & Wolfram, 2014) • More efficient markets (Brem & Ivens, 2013;Khan & Melkas, 2020) Social consequences • Improved access to basic services (Hyvärinen et al, 2016) • Healthier living environments (Levänen et al, 2016;Pisoni et al, 2018) • Female empowerment, improved social equity, and greater inclusion of marginalized people (Basu et al, 2013;Vossenberg, 2018) Environmental consequences • Improved pollution control (Gerybadze & Klein, 2020;Levänen et al, 2016Levänen et al, , 2022 • Greener technologies (Gandenberger et al, 2020;Gerybadze & Klein, 2020 • Reduced waste, greater recycling, and value creation from waste (Albert, 2019;Bas, 2020) • Utilization of locally available resources Levänen et al, 2022) consequences of FI, and subsequently identified important factors from each of these streams (Table 1).…”

Pro-Poor Innovations to Promote Instrumental Freedoms: A Systematic Literature Review

“…In step (5), when the articles were read in their entirety, additional articles were excluded based upon a more in-depth understanding of the scope of these studies, resulting in the composition of a final sample of 165 articles, which was effectively systematized.…”

“…Step (5) was based on the qualitative analysis of the content of the bibliographic material [60]. This content analysis began with developing a system of categorization and analysis that represents the dimensions of the object studied by means of previous reading of the collected material.…”

“…This step followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) protocol [59], which gives the number of studies filtered at each step of the selection process (see Figure 1). In step (5), when the articles were read in their entirety, additional articles were excluded based upon a more in-depth understanding of the scope of these studies, resulting in the composition of a final sample of 165 articles, which was effectively systematized.…”

“…Regardless of whether they are for-profit or explicitly developed for inclusive purposes, the initiatives of PPI have the potential to contribute to sustainable development [4][5][6]. Products that come from frugal innovations, for example, seeking to minimize the use of resources and energy, have the potential to support environmental sustainability [7].…”