Implementing continuous quality improvement (CQI) in acute care general hospitals was investigated as an occurrence of a paradigm shift and organisational learning. Presented within a contextual framework, two case studies are reported, and are complemented by a survey of hospitals operating in Ontario, Canada. The findings support a top-down approach where the CEO exhibits transformational leadership and aligns the organisation's strategy, structure, and culture to CQI. The conflicting stakeholder goals of quality of care and cost savings are harmonized. Organisational members undergo both a cognitive and behavioural adjustment centred on teamwork, facilitated by training and education. Teamwork and involvement of physicians remain long-term challenges.
Purpose
– Frugal innovation is a term that has been used to describe the low-cost products and services, as well as the systems and processes adopted by organizations to develop them. The purpose of this paper is to examine the experience of multi-national companies (MNCs) in India as they adopt the philosophy of frugal innovation to develop products that are high in technology but low in terms of cost to meet the requirements of the market conditions in India, and similar low-income economies.
Design/methodology/approach
– The case study methodology was adopted to understand the experiences of the Indian subsidiaries of two MNCs, Bosch India and 3M India. Data were acquired through interviews with key decision makers, documents, and publicly available information.
Findings
– The two MNCs have increased research and development (R&D) in India and adopted the philosophy of frugal innovation which combines high technology with low costs. Based on the analysis, some propositions are presented indicating that MNCs will shift R&D to India if there are market opportunities; they will adopt the philosophy of frugal innovation to produce high technology products that are lost cost and low cost over product lifetime and will also expand to new-to-the-world innovation and finally contribute to global innovation.
Research limitations/implications
– The study is based on only two case studies and a large sample study may be required before the findings can be generalized.
Practical implications
– Other MNCs can learn from Bosch India and 3M India in terms of adopting frugal innovation practices to be successful in low-income economies.
Originality/value
– The field of frugal innovation is quite new and largely based on anecdotal accounts of successful low-cost innovation. This paper provides a more detailed account of the experiences of two well-known organizations to present propositions that may be used to conduct a large sample study.
Concerned over the lack of high quality, context specific management research in India, and the predilection of Indian researchers to follow Western models of research and publication blindly, the authors take stock of Indian management research in this round table discussion and debate some of the relevant issues. Urging Indian researchers to strive for the levels of rigour of the Western models, they make a case for confident indigenous scholarship to suit the development and educational requirements of the country, following contextrelevant constructs and methodologies in research and developing curricula, materials and modes of dissemination independently. These ideas were also explored at the second Indian Academy of Management Conference held at IIM Bangalore in December 2011.
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