ABSTRACT
Frugal innovation (FI) is an emerging paradigm of innovation, mainly practiced in developing countries such as India, China, Brazil, and Kenya. In both developing and advanced countries, platform firms such as Uber and AirBnB have disrupted traditional business models by leveraging the capabilities provided by digital technologies such as social media, mobility, analytics, and cloud computing. Digital innovation results from the digitalisation of resources, capabilities, processes, products, services, and business models. Digitalisation moves beyond digitisation and involves additional socio-technical aspects that impact the socio-economic context of the organisation. The complexities of the relationships and the physical and digital orchestration of resources, services, and processes that take place in a FI ecosystem are difficult to operationalise and visualise. The lower half extrapolates the top layers and highlights “digitalisation” through the digital platform. The ecosystem consists of several “digital platform participants” and policy and regulations that can shape the environment with respect to socio-economic and political issues including resource constraints and institutional voids.
