In their article, 'A development lens to frugal innovation: Bringing back production and technological capabilities into the discourse', Dr Sanghamitra Chakravarty and Dr Georgina Gomez investigate the relationship of frugal innovation with development within the current global landscape.
Published in European Journal of Development Research, the authors critically review the evolving frugal innovation narrative and explore the theoretical foundations of frugality. They interpret it both as inovation for and under resource constraint to advance capabilities.
While innovation for resource constraint offers a path for enhancing individual capabilities through availability and access to frugal products, innovation under constraints contributes to firm-level capability.
They argue that active policy interventions are needed to enable both these processes. Failing this, frugal innovation will continue to reproduce the status quo, offering a limited challenge to mainstream technological hegemony.
Read the article online - 'A development lens to frugal innovation: Bringing back production and technological capabilities into the discourse', July 2023.
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