Frugal Innovation

Yasser Bhatti is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London. His social innovation research focuses on the role of emerging market economies and situated actors, such as social entrepreneurs, in emerging trends in innovation that include frugal and reverse innovation. Most recently, he served as an expert on the scientific advisory board of the European Commission project on Frugal Innovation. Radha Ramaswami Basu has over forty years of experience in technology innovation and management. She is widely recognized as a leading woman entrepreneur in hi-tech companies and as a pioneer in the Indian software business. Radha is founder and CEO of iMerit Inc., a technology services company (www.iMerit.net) that pioneers the 'smart sourcing model', working on latest AI, machine learning and ecommerce services for global clients. Radha was Founder and Director of Frugal Innovation Lab at Santa Clara University, California, and sits on the boards of NetHope, Santa Clara University Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Jhumki Basu Foundation. She has won numerous awards including the first UN Women GEMTECH award, Excelsior Leadership, Top25 Women of the Web, CEO of the Year 2000, and Leader of the Millennium. David Barron is a Rhodes Trust Associate Professor in Organisational Sociology at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, as well as the Vice Principal and a Fellow and Tutor in Management Studies at Jesus College, Oxford. After graduating from the University of Cambridge in 1979 with a degree in natural sciences, he worked for several years as a social worker in Scotland and London, before completing his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology at Cornell University. David Barron's research is concerned with the sociology of organisations, quantitative research methods and social networks. Marc J. Ventresca is an economic sociologist in the Strategy, Innovation and Marketing Faculty at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and a Governing Body Fellow of Wolfson College. His research and teaching focus on the formation of markets and networks in business and social settings. Specifically, he researches how markets are built and the actors who build them. He is also an expert in the areas of governance, innovation and technology and how they interact with markets and networks.

• Part I. Models of Frugal Innovation: 1. Outline of the context, literature and methodology; 2. Conceptualising innovation – Model 1; 3. Conceptualising innovation under constraints – Model 2; Part II. Towards a Theory of Frugal Innovation: 4. Integrative results and theory development; 5. Test of models using secondary cases; 6. Emerging concepts in innovation; 7.  Implications for research, practice and policy; Part III. Tools for Practice and Research: Appendix A. Toolkit to identify frugal innovations; Appendix B. Core competencies from the frugal innovation lab; Appendix C. Detailed research methodology and design; References; Select Bibliography.

'Targeted at scholars and providing a solid foundation for future research, Frugal Innovation also offers keen insights on how social entrepreneurs conceive innovation in multiple dimensions. Practitioners will find experience-based frameworks that help them synthesize and communicate the integrative nature of innovations that benefit the underserved. Like social entrepreneurship, frugal innovation is a term with many meanings. Integrative, synthetic, and clear, the authors examine multiple dimensions of innovation and distil frugal innovation as a hybrid approach tuned to environments with extreme resource constraints and resource voids. Both researchers and practitioners will benefit from learning how social entrepreneurs themselves perceive innovation.' Thane Kreiner, Executive Director and Howard and Alida Charney University Professor, Santa Clara University, California