Innovation and entrepreneurship in India: Understanding jugaad

In this paper, we use the term jugaad to describe the frugal, flexible, and inclusive approach to innovation and entrepreneurship emerging from India. We articulate why this method is appropriate within the Indian context and highlight similarities between jugaad and related types of innovation originating from other emerging (and developed) economies. Next, we identify different types of organizations that engage in jugaad and elucidate their abilities, or lack thereof, to undertake such innovation. Finally, we incorporate the notion of jugaad within current theorizing on innovation and entrepreneurship and outline an agenda for future research on this topic. Overall, we provide insights on a mode of innovating that is increasingly prevalent in India as well as certain economies around the world and take steps towards integrating this concept into the mainstream theory, practice, and policy discourses around innovation and entrepreneurship.

[1]  S. Mullainathan,et al.  Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much , 2013 .

[2]  R. Garud,et al.  Bricolage versus breakthrough: distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship , 2003 .

[3]  Cornelius Herstatt,et al.  Open Global Innovation Networks as Enablers of Frugal Innovation: Propositions Based on Evidence from India , 2012 .

[4]  M. Lorenzen.  Creativity in context : Content, cost, chance and collection in the organization of the film industry , 2009 .

[5]  Kamal Munir,et al.  Impact at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’: The Role of Social Capital in Capability Development and Community Empowerment , 2012 .

[6]  Ming Zeng,et al.  Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition , 2007 .

[7]  Terence Tsai,et al.  Strategy in emerging economies and the theory of the firm , 2014, Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

[8]  Newton M. Campos.  The Lean Startup: How today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses , 2014 .

[9]  Srinivas Sridharan,et al.  Understanding consumption and entrepreneurship in subsistence marketplaces , 2010 .

[10]  T. M. Amabile.  The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. , 1983 .

[11]  Jaideep Prabhu,et al.  Frugal Innovation: How to do better with less , 2016 .

[12]  W. Nordhaus.  Do Real Output and Real Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not , 1996 .

[13]  Shiva Kumar Srinivasan,et al.  From jugaad to systematic innovation: the challenge for India , 2011 .

[14]  S. Rothenberg.  Sustainability Through Servicizing , 2007 .

[15]  Chris Rowley,et al.  Globalization, Change and Learning in South Asia , 2013 .

[16]  Holger Ernst,et al.  The Antecedents and Consequences of Affordable Value Innovations for Emerging Markets , 2015 .

[17]  N. Fligstein,et al.  The Architecture of Markets , 2015 .

[18]  Nora Lustig,et al.  Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty , 2012 .

[19]  C. Geertz.  Local Knowledge: Further Essays In Interpretive Anthropology , 1983 .

[20]  Kenneth E. Boulding.  The epistemology of complex systems , 1987 .

[21]  T. Khanna,et al.  Emerging Giants: Building World-Class Companies in Developing Countries , 2006 .

[22]  S. Si,et al.  Can guanxi be a problem? Contexts, ties, and some unfavorable consequences of social capital in China , 2010 .

[23]  Costas Markides,et al.  Strategic Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid , 2007 .

[24]  Klaudia Kaiser,et al.  The Gifts Of Athena Historical Origins Of The Knowledge Economy , 2016 .

[25]  Alexander Brem,et al.  Research and development from the bottom up - introduction of terminologies for new product development in emerging markets , 2014 .

[26]  Preston G. Smith.  The art of innovation: lessons in creativity from IDEO, America’s leading design firm: Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman; New York: Doubleday, 2001, 308 + xii pages, $26.00 , 2002 .

[27]  Garry D. Bruton,et al.  Entrepreneurship, poverty, and Asia: Moving beyond subsistence entrepreneurship , 2014, Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

[28]  Saras D. Sarasvathy,et al.  Effectuation , 2008 .

[29]  M. Ventresca,et al.  Building Inclusive Markets in Rural Bangladesh: How Intermediaries Work Institutional Voids , 2012 .

[30]  Anil Nair,et al.  Localized advantage in a global economy: The case of Bangalore , 2007 .

[31]  J. Mair,et al.  Entrepreneurship in and around institutional voids: A case study from Bangladesh , 2009 .

[32]  Clayton M. Christensen,et al.  The Great Leap: Driving Innovation From the Base of the Pyramid , 2002 .

[33]  Kevin Roberts,et al.  Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth , 2014 .

[34]  S. Hart,et al.  Reinventing strategies for emerging markets: beyond the transnational model , 2004 .

[35]  Anil Nair,et al.  Delayed creative destruction and the coexistence of technologies , 2003 .

[36]  Sanjay K. Jain,et al.  Institutional Logic Migration and Industry Evolution in Emerging Economies: The Case of Telephony in India , 2013 .

[37]  J. Clapp,et al.  Development as freedom , 1999 .

[38]  Graham Warwick.  Fuel's gold , 2007 .

[39]  A. T. J. Montemiranda,et al.  Poor economics. A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty , 2011 .

[40]  Yasser Bhatti.  Reverse Innovation: Create Far from Home, Win Everywhere , 2014 .

[41]  Jay B. Barney,et al.  The poverty problem and the industrialization solution , 2015, Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

[42]  C. K. Prahalad,et al.  The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid , 2004 .

[43]  Anita M. McGahan,et al.  Innovation for Inclusive Growth: Towards a Theoretical Framework and a Research Agenda , 2012 .

[44]  Radha Ramaswami Basu,et al.  7 – Frugal innovation , 2013 .

[45]  P. D. Dunn,et al.  Appropriate Technology: Technology with a Human Face , 1979 .

[46]  S. Sarasvathy.  Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency , 2001 .

[47]  Sanjay K. Jain,et al.  Pragmatic agency in technology standards setting: The case of Ethernet , 2012 .

[48]  Stephen L. Parente,et al.  Barriers to riches , 2000 .

[49]  Aneel Karnani,et al.  The Mirage of Marketing to the Bottom of the Pyramid: How the Private Sector Can Help Alleviate Poverty , 2007 .

[50]  D. Ahlstrom.  Innovation and Growth: How Business Contributes to Society , 2010 .

[51]  Clayton M. Christensen.  The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail , 2013 .

[52]  C. K. Prahalad,et al.  Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, the: eradicating poverty through profits , 2006 .

[53]  Chris Trimble,et al.  Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere , 2012 .

[54]  Clayton M. Christensen.  The Ongoing Process of Building a Theory of Disruption , 2006 .

[55]  D. Ahlstrom,et al.  Researchers' Roles in Negotiating the Institutional Fabric of Technologies , 1997 .

[56]  M. Porter,et al.  The Competitive Advantage of Nations. , 1990 .

[57]  R. Cooper,et al.  The end of poverty: economic possibilities for our time. , 2008, European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe.

[58]  R. Cialdini.  Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion , 1993 .

[59]  Damian Miller.  Selling Solar: The Diffusion of Renewable Energy in Emerging Markets , 2009 .

[60]  Manuela Moeller,et al.  An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions , 2015 .

[61]  G. George,et al.  Institutional entrepreneurship, governance, and poverty: Insights from emergency medical response servicesin India , 2015 .

[62]  Lucas Wexler,et al.  The White Mans Burden Why The Wests Efforts To Aid The Rest Have Done So Much Ill And So Little Good , 2016 .

[63]  Donald N. McCloskey,et al.  Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, , 2008 .

[64]  Holger Ernst,et al.  The Antecedents and Consequences of Affordable Value Innovations for Emerging Markets: Affordable Value Innovations for Emerging Markets , 2015 .

[65]  J. Sachs,et al.  THE END OF POVERTY: Economic Possibilities for Our Time , 2005 .

[66]  The entrepreneur's ‘resource potential’ and the organic square of entrepreneurship: definition and application to the French case , 2014 .

[67]  P. C. Bansal,et al.  From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India , 2011 .

[68]  R. A. Mashelkar,et al.  Innovation's Holy grail , 2010 .

[69]  Holger Ernst,et al.  The democratizing effects of frugal innovation , 2013 .

[70]  A. Tabarrok.  Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed - and What to Do About It , 2010 .

[71]  T. Baker,et al.  Creating Something from Nothing: Resource Construction through Entrepreneurial Bricolage , 2005 .

[72]  Danny Miller,et al.  Stewardship or Agency? A Social Embeddedness Reconciliation of Conduct and Performance in Public Family Businesses , 2011, Organ. Sci..

[73]  T. Khanna.  A Case for Contextual Intelligence , 2015 .

[74]  C. Lévi-Strauss,et al.  The Savage Mind. , 1967 .

[75]  James B. Burnham,et al.  The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good , 2007 .

[76]  C. Prahalad,et al.  Bottom of the Pyramid as a Source of Breakthrough Innovations , 2012 .

[77]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Creativity In Context: Update To The Social Psychology Of Creativity , 1996 .

[78]  D. Ahlstrom.  The Hidden Reason Why the First World War Matters Today: The Development and Spread of Modern Management , 2014 .

[79]  D. Ahlstrom,et al.  Board turnover in Taiwan’s public firms: An empirical study , 2013 .

[80]  Anne S. Miner,et al.  Organizational Improvisation and Learning: A Field Study , 2001 .