From Cost to Frugal and Reverse Innovation: Mapping the Field and Implications for Global Competitiveness
TLDR
In this paper, different types of resource-constrained innovation-cost, good-enough, frugal, and reverse innovation-conceptualizes the distinctions between them, and discusses the implications for strategy providing a framework for managers to systematically analyze their own approaches to resource-consistency innovation and craft proper development processes.Abstract:
Product and service innovations aimed at resource-constrained customers in emerging markets have recently attracted much research and management attention. Despite the prominence of this topic, however, there are some misconceptions around the different innovation types in this domain that may limit managers' ability to derive informed implications for strategy and operations. This article analyzes the different types of resource-constrained innovation-cost, good-enough, frugal, and reverse innovation-conceptualizes the distinctions between them, and discusses the implications for strategy providing a framework for managers to systematically analyze their own approaches to resource-constrained innovation and craft proper development processes. By highlighting the differences between the various types of resourceconstrained innovation, this article also provides the conceptual grounds for further systematic research.read more
Citations
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What is frugal innovation? Three defining criteria
Timo Weyrauch,Cornelius Herstatt +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define three criteria for frugal innovation: substantial cost reduction, concentration on core functionalities, and optimised performance level, based on the results of a literature review and interviews with 45 managers from companies and researchers from different research institutes.
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Business models for sustainable innovation – an empirical analysis of frugal products and services
TL;DR: In this article, the relationship between frugal and reverse innovation and sustainability remains largely unexplored in the literature, and the authors aim to fill in this gap and answer the research question: How can frugaling and reverse innovations strengthen sustainable development, and how can business models in this context be systemized and described? Employing a multiple case study design, a total of 59 frugual products and services were investigated from a business models and sustainability strategy perspective from June 2014 until June 2015.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Systematic Literature Review of Constraint-Based Innovations: State of the Art and Future Perspectives
TL;DR: This study attempts to systematically organize and synthesize the research on innovation approaches originated in, for or from emerging markets, and finds growing standardization in terminology usage and increasing emphasis on “bottom-up” and structured innovation approaches.
Journal ArticleDOI
Frugal innovation: A review and research agenda
TL;DR: A systematic research approach was applied in this paper to synthesize the frugal innovation literature, and 101 relevant articles from 11 publication databases were extracted from a standard research review protocol.
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How Frugal Innovation Promotes Social Sustainability
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a framework that identifies essential themes of social sustainability and explores them through frugal innovation, which can be viewed as an approach towards fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
References
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International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on international investment and international trade in the product cycle and argue that it is a mistake to assume that equal access to scientific principles in all the advanced countries means equal probability of the application of these principles in the generation of new products.
Book
The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid : eradicating poverty through profits
TL;DR: The Future of Competition (HBS B O O K R E V I E W S) as discussed by the authors is a very human record of the journey made not only by Prahalad, his colleagues, students, and colleagues at the University of Michigan and elsewhere, but also by the poor whose stories represent the case material included in Parts II and III of this exemplary volume.
Journal Article
How GE Is Disrupting Itself
TL;DR: In a bid to preempt the emerging giants, General Electric is innovating products for the developing world and then bringing them to its core markets as mentioned in this paper, which is a strategy that has been shown to work well in developing countries.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reverse innovation, emerging markets, and global strategy
TL;DR: The concept of reverse innovation as mentioned in this paper refers to the case where an innovation is adopted first in poor (emerging) economies before "trickling up" to rich countries, and it raises interesting theoretical questions, such as what kinds of innovation emerging economies are likely to spawn, why such innovations might diffuse to richer countries, what competitive advantages local and foreign firms enjoy in this process, and how it affects the global strategy and organization of established MNEs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Frugal Innovation in Emerging Markets
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used Swiss weighing-instrument manufacturer Mettler Toledo as a case example to show that frugal innovations are largely developed by local R&D subsidiaries of Western firms in emerging countries.