ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what innovation means in the specific context of poverty reduction, presents 'nonsense' statements that have become accepted wisdom about innovation, and proposes the authors' own view. The conservative political philosopher Michael Oakeshott summarised many of these innovation idiocies in the early 1960s. One way of thinking about this is to borrow an analogy from the biologist Richard Dawkins on the difference between evolution and design. Cemex, executives spent several months living in the poor districts of Mexico to understand the barriers for people to buy their products. The Cemex practice of asking employees to spend time in the poor districts of Mexico with its potential customers is a valuable and increasingly popular approach to innovation. The management scientist Peter Williamson describes a company that achieves this sort of thing as a 'meta-national'. The multinational model is simply to export the headquarters' model to poor countries because one wants their markets or cheap manufacturing capability.
