Abstract
This article analyzes the role of frugal innovation in inclusive development through a gender lens. It explores frugal innovation processes as a potential means to empowerment and enhanced well-being of marginalized women. The presented analytical framework balances the need for evaluating whether frugal innovation delivers direct demonstrable value to the lives of marginalized women and where and when frugal innovation may tackle adverse institutions to unlock a more egalitarian flow of benefits and opportunities to individual women, households, and communities. The framework explains how frugal innovation can have a wide variety of positive, negative, and unintended outcomes across market and nonmarket domains. The key focus is on exploring when frugal innovations are more likely to reproduce or transform institutionalized gender-related constraints that structure how men and women can access resources and opportunities. New empirical research to substantiate the framework requires an interdisciplinary approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods.
Cet article analyse le rôle des innovations frugales du point de vue du genre, dans le contexte du développement inclusif. L’article explore les processus d’innovation frugale comme un moyen qui offre un fort potentiel de donner plus de pouvoir aux femmes les plus marginalisées, et d’augmenter leur bien-être. Le cadre analytique présenté met sur la balance le besoin d’évaluer si les innovations frugales arrivent effectivement à livrer une valeur démontrable dans la vie des femmes marginalisées, ainsi que les conditions sous lesquelles ces mêmes innovations frugales challengent les institutions adverses à ces processus visant à débloquer un flux plus égalitaire de bénéfices et d’opportunités pour les femmes, les ménages, et les communautés. Le cadre de cette étude explique comment les innovations frugales peuvent avoir une variété de conséquences positives, négatives, et non intentionnelles, que ce soit dans les domaines du marché ou du non-marché. L’objectif principal de cette étude est de comprendre quand les innovations frugales sont plus susceptibles de reproduire ou de transformer les contraintes institutionnelles liées au genre, qui déterminent comment les hommes et les femmes peuvent avoir accès aux ressources et aux opportunités. Le nouveau cadre de recherche empirique utilisé dans cette étude nécessite d’une approche interdisciplinaire, qui combine des méthodologies qualitatives et quantitatives.
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Acknowledgements
I thank the editors of this special issue, Peter Knorringa, Andre Leliveld, and Natalia Lorenzoni for their enduring encouragements, patience, and support during the writing process of this article. I particularly would like to express gratitude to Andre Leliveld, whose feedback and edits greatly improved the article. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Vossenberg, S. Frugal Innovation Through a Gender Lens: Towards an Analytical Framework. Eur J Dev Res 30, 34–48 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-017-0118-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-017-0118-z