How disruptive is frugal?

Rao, Balkrishna C.

doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2013.03.003

Cited by 236 publications

(240 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…These innovations have emerged in various sectors varying from healthcare instruments to energy solutions and household appliances, and have raised attention amongst academia, practitioners as well as policy-makers [8][9][10][11][12]14,41,42]. Frugal innovations aim to provide affordable, no-frills, good (enough) quality products and services for resource-constrained consumers [9,10,14,43].…”

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These innovations are usually targeted to meet relatively basic needs at a lower cost than their counterparts and, hence, provide high value [8][9][10]. Multinational corporations (MNCs), as well as smaller companies, have successfully developed frugal innovations and tapped into these low income markets.…”

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as a rather young concept, the actual implementation of frugal innovation processes is still varied: some of the solutions are developed from scratch, while others are built on existing technologies [8][9][10]. In both cases, the solutions need to respond to the specific needs in their target environments.…”

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sustainability of frugal innovations is claimed to arise mainly from no-frills design and simplicity of the frugal solutions, i.e., outcomes [9,12,13]. These qualities of the outcomes are argued to lead to lower resource consumption and, therefore, increased sustainability [9,13,44].…”

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These qualities of the outcomes are argued to lead to lower resource consumption and, therefore, increased sustainability [9,13,44]. Yet, it is not properly studied whether the entire frugal innovation process, covering value chains from procurement of raw materials to production, distribution and end-of-life, is actually sustainable.…”

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Potential and Pitfalls of Frugal Innovation in the Water Sector: Insights from Tanzania to Global Value Chains

Hyvärinen¹,

Keskinen²,

Varis³

2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:Water is perhaps the most intertwined, and basic, resource on our planet. Nevertheless, billions face water-related challenges, varying from lack of water and sanitation services to hindrances on livelihoods and socio-economic activities. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the broad role that water has for development, and also call for the private sector to participate in solving these numerous development challenges. This study looks into the potential of frugal innovations as a means for the private sector to engage in water-related development challenges. Our findings, based on a case study and literature review, indicate that frugal innovations have potential in this front due to their focus on affordable, no-frills solutions. However, we also recognize pitfalls related to frugal innovations in the water sector. Although the innovations would, in principle, be sustainable, deficiencies related to scale and institutional structures may emerge. These deficiencies are linked to the importance of water in a variety of processes, both natural and manmade, as well as to the complexity of global production-consumption value chains. Increasing the innovations' sustainability impact requires broader acknowledgement of the underlying value chains and their diverse links with water. A holistic view on water can mitigate water-related business risks while increasing wellbeing on an individual level.

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Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Frugal Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Potential and Pitfalls of Frugal Innovation in the Water Sector: Insights from Tanzania to Global Value Chains

Hyvärinen¹,

Keskinen²,

Varis³

2016

Sustainability

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References

2018

Innovation and Development

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Introducing a Sustainability Evaluation Framework based on the Sustainable Development Goals applied to Four Cases of South African Frugal Innovation

Dressler

Bucher

2018

Bus Strat Dev

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Evaluating sustainability based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a complex but purposeful approach with a broad field of application. In order to handle the complexity of the SDGs and achieve flexibility at the same time, this paper introduces a three‐step evaluation system based on the SDGs for the assessment of the sustainability of innovations. It was used to assess four cases of South African frugal innovation with the conclusion that all four examined cases were sustainable, indicating an interrelation between the frugality and the sustainability of an innovation. The framework was reviewed and revised several times and tested successfully and so far has proven to be applicable to a wide spectrum of innovations.

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How disruptive is frugal?

Cited by 236 publications

References 3 publications

Potential and Pitfalls of Frugal Innovation in the Water Sector: Insights from Tanzania to Global Value Chains

Potential and Pitfalls of Frugal Innovation in the Water Sector: Insights from Tanzania to Global Value Chains

References

Introducing a Sustainability Evaluation Framework based on the Sustainable Development Goals applied to Four Cases of South African Frugal Innovation

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