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- Convenors:
-
Theodoros Papaioannou
(The Open University)
Les Levidow (Open University)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Inclusive development?
- Location:
- Christodoulou Meeting Rooms East, Room 1
- Sessions:
- Thursday 20 June, -, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The panel explores new forms of inclusive innovation for development that reduce or mitigate inequality in marginalised and lower-income populations as well as contestations from theoretical and/or empirical viewpoints.
Long Abstract:
Inequality remains a primary challenge to sustainable development in the 21st century. Innovation has been a key factor in the growing divide between rich and poor. Over recent decades, science, technology and innovation (STI) has excluded or marginalised a significant part of the world's population. For this reason, global development policymakers and practitioners have been advocating more inclusive forms of innovation as means towards a fairer future. State bodies have been promoting novel forms such as frugal and grassroots innovation.
Yet several issues remain unclear or even contentious: how innovations should be evaluated for socio-economic fairness, what political arrangements can generate inclusive innovations, and what policies can facilitate them. Some ‘inclusive innovation’ agendas obscure the sources of inequality within societies. In dominant portrayals, unequal outcomes are retrospectively explained by the wider context, e.g. patterns of distribution, access, and affordability -- rather than by STI design. By contrast, any socio-economic improvements are attributed to an innovation per se; such improvements are rarely attributed to users’ collective power.
Such power relations have been contested through social movements for reshaping innovation. These have various kinds of engagements with mainstream institutions of STI – in particular, incorporation or mobilization. The latter mode generates bottom-up processes and principles of global justice, as a basis to challenge the dominant practices, technologies, power relations and discourses of innovation.
This panel will focus on inclusive innovation for development and various contestations from theoretical and/or empirical viewpoints. Abstracts should address some of the following questions:
1. How do types of inclusive innovation (frugal, grassroots, etc.) relate to development, e.g. by presuming or facilitating specific trajectories?
2. What evaluative frameworks do we need in order to make sense of inclusive innovation for development?
3. What kind of transformative politics and policy are required for promoting inclusive innovation in diverse contexts?
4. How do some social movements reshape innovation for/by contesting socio-economic inequalities?
5. What specific features make social movements effective in promoting inclusive innovation for global justice?
6. How do initiatives for ‘inclusive innovation’ change (or proliferate) meanings of innovation and inclusion? By which actors? What exclusions remain hidden?
7. How do these processes potentially transform, complement or reinforce incumbent systems? What tensions arise?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 20 June, 2019, -Rebecca Hanlin (African Centre for Technology Studies) Dinar Kale (The Open University)
Paper short abstract:
Inclusive innovation and social innovation concepts are insufficient given the paradigm shift recognising the need for transformative change in international development. This paper contends that the social technologies concept enables movement from inclusive to transformative innovation policy.
Paper long abstract:
Inclusive innovation is predominately outcome focused in orientation. On the other hand, social innovation explicitly recognises the importance of both inclusivity in outcome and process of innovation activities. However, increasingly practitioners and academics from both fields of study recognise that there is a continuum of innovation activities which move from being less inclusive to more inclusive. At the top of the spectrum - and the desired state - is system wide, paradigm shifting transformative change which places the excluded at the forefront of debates and normalises such debates. This paper argues that more emphasis is needed on social technologies or the way 'work is divided and coordinated' if this desired state is to be achieved. It hypotheses that building social technologies across the continuum builds competences and system making connections that can create the environment for the desired state to be achieved. It uses evidence of four case studies from the medical devices sector in Kenya and India to investigate this. Preliminary analysis of the case studies show that it is virtually impossible for full inclusivity to be achieved (there are always losers). This raises planning and oversight questions with regards to (a) how innovation work is divided and coordinated in order to bring maximum benefit to all and (b) who should be involved. This has implications for an allied debate within the international development community on the role of targeted transformative innovation policy and directive policy instruments. Specifically, criteria for targeting policy efforts.
Sanghamitra Chakravarty (Technical University of Delft)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores to what extent the development and delivery of frugal innovation can bridge needs of low income consumers with long term economic development in the form of technical change and technological capabilities in local firms.
Paper long abstract:
Frugal innovation has drawn enormous attention from various quarters in the last decade. Multinational Corporations have raced to offer stripped down versions of their products to the large untapped African market, many times under the umbrella of "creative capitalism" and "inclusive business". The idea of "doing more with less for more people" as one road towards realizing the Sustainable Development Goals has created much excitement in policy circles. Despite speculations that frugal innovation can provide a solution to Africa's many challenges - a confluence of its untapped market and development agenda, the discourse around how it relates to local development remains ideologically polarized and lacking detailed empirical evidence.
This paper rests on the argument that, if frugal innovation is to be positioned as an enabler of economic development, it not only has to address individual capability by serving needs of the price conscious consumer as a product; but must also induce technical change and technological capability in local firms in the innovation process.Under normal circumstances, it is recognized that there is tension between economic growth and inclusion. In developing countries with scarce resources, governments find it difficult to balance the primary objectives of creating basic living conditions with long term economic development goal through technological capability building. I explore to what extent frugal innovation can bridge these two dimensions of development. Using data from the health sector in South Africa, my methodological approach involves firm level innovation study and is informed by theories on multinationals, technological capability and innovation systems.
Rebecca Gordon (University of Birmingham)
Paper short abstract:
This research explores the work of a grassroots organisation which is unique in the way in which it operates and aimed to assess the impact of women's leading of self-help groups on their on education, confidence and transformative impact on their daughters' education.
Paper long abstract:
In spite of increases in girls' access to education worldwide, those in rural and socio-economically marginalised communities, such as scheduled caste girls in rural Bihar, still experience educational inequality due to intersections of poverty and gender. Interventions that seek to support families economically, aiming to mitigate these socio-economic inequalities, are of interest to policymakers. Microfinance in particular, through its focus on women, may reorganise gender relations and lead to women's empowerment. However, the debate between researchers and practitioners about the supposed impacts of microfinance continue (Duflo & Karlan, 2009; Easterly, 2010), including both a critique of its top-down 'neoliberal' agenda and a feminist criticism of approaches that rely on women and girls to solve world poverty (Chant, 2016). This research explores the work of a grassroots organisation which is unique in the way in which it operates, fostering inclusivity of members' involvement in facilitating their own self-help groups and focusing on providing loans in a supportive environment driven by the requirements of its members. This research examined the impact of membership on women's lives, through focus groups, particularly hearing their own perspectives on whether this organisation included them in their decision-making. It also aimed to assess the impact of their active inclusion in the organisation and leading of self-help groups on their own education, confidence, and subsequent transformative impact on their daughters' education. Finally, consideration is given to how women conceptualised the involvement and role of this organisation on changes taking place in their lives.
Elvis Avenyo (University of Johannesburg) Erika Kraemer-Mbula (University of Johannesburg)
Paper short abstract:
Women-owned SMEs are important innovators (Kimosop et al., 2016). As the intermediation between SMEs and innovation becomes the epicentre of Africa's prospects, female-owned enterprises become crucial. This paper analyses the innovation activities of female-owned informal enterprises on employment.
Paper long abstract:
Women-owned SMEs are important innovators (Kimosop et al., 2016). As the intermediation between SMEs and innovation becomes the epicentre of Africa's economic prospects, the economic significance of female-owned enterprises becomes crucial. This paper explores and analyses the innovation activities of female-owned informal enterprises, and how these innovations enhance employment in non-farm informal enterprises. The paper aims to question and challenge what innovation is, who innovates, and where we can find innovations. In addition, the paper aims to highlight and provoke gender-awareness in innovation policy, in order to promote gender equality and inclusive development.
For the empirical investigation, we employed the Dose Response Model (Cerulli, 2015) using enterprise-level data on 513 informal enterprises surveyed in urban Ghana (Accra and Tema). The enterprise-level data, using open and closed-ended questionnaire, collected information on key enterprises' performance and innovation variables of interest, including employment, learning processes (interaction and apprenticeship), innovation and sales for the last and three fiscal years ago, among others. The data was gathered between May-June 2016, covering the last fiscal year (2015) and three fiscal years ago (2013). In each informal enterprise, we interviewed owners or assigned caretakers responsible for the day-to-day running of the business.
Stephen Kehinde Medase (DSTNRFNewton Fund Trilateral Chair in Transformative Innovation, the 4IR and Sustainable Development, University of Johannesburg) Laura BarasaX (University of Nairobi)
Paper short abstract:
The study examines how specialised capabilities including absorptive capacity and marketing capabilities influence innovation commercialisation in manufacturing firms in Nigeria. We hypothesise that absorptive capacity and marketing capabilities are positively associated with innovation performance.
Paper long abstract:
Purpose - This study investigates how specialised capabilities including absorptive capacity and marketing capabilities influence innovation commercialisation in manufacturing firms in Nigeria. We hypothesise that absorptive capacity measures including regional openness and formal training for innovation, and marketing capabilities encompassing new product marketing and marketing innovation are positively associated with innovation performance. Design/Methodology/Approach - We examine commercialisation of innovation within the profiting from innovation (PFI) and dynamic capabilities (DC) framework and use data from the 2012 Nigeria Innovation Survey to test our hypothesis by means of a Heckman sample selection model.
Findings - We find that absorptive capacity measures comprising regional openness and formal training are positively associated with innovation performance. We also find that marketing capabilities as indicated by new product marketing and marketing innovation are positively associated with innovation performance.
Practical implications - We conclude that regional openness and formal training are essential for intra-organisational and inter-organisational learning that underscores the importance of the degree of absorptive capacity in fostering innovation. In addition, our results give prominence to the importance of marketing capabilities in an innovative environment given their large effects on innovation performance.
Originality/Value - This study fuses the PFI and DC framework to examine why innovating firms may not necessarily succeed. This area of study has received scant attention in sub-Saharan Africa given that extant literature focuses on value creation as opposed to value capture.
Keywords: Absorptive capacity; commercialisation; formal training; innovation; manufacturing; marketing capabilities, Nigeria.
Rieko Shibata (University of Reading)
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores how innovation networks are exclusive due to unequal access to information, resources and enabling institutions, by applying systems thinking approach for innovation case studies in Uganda. The findings suggest the needs for a farmer-centred against an innovation-centred approach.
Paper long abstract:
Innovation support systems tend to be biased on particular innovations and ignore the real needs of poor farmers who are excluded from networks. How can innovation networks be inclusive in the world where smallholder farmers are becoming increasingly heterogeneous which limits social learning? This paper demonstrates how particular innovations spread and why not to all farmers in a community. Furthermore, it analyses the diverse aspirations and the real constraints which individual farmers (n=531) face in their innovation processes. The analysis of 12 innovation case studies in four villages of Uganda found that richer model farmers often use vertical networks for obtaining knowledge and pass it through to the horizontal informal networks where poorer farmers mostly observe and copy. Nevertheless, the lacking linkages with non-adopters remain as structural holes in those innovation networks. The 'laggards' in linear innovation approach clearly have their own priorities and their specific constraints with a strategy in mind. The poor farmers are increasingly constrained with limited land and stricter conditions for their rented land, and with other resources, before adopting various recommended innovations. It was also found that agricultural casual labour is increasingly important for poor people's innovations, while their lack of access to credit remains a bottleneck for them. In the meantime, the rich farmers are similarly constrained to access credit, due to costly quality education for their children. The paper suggests the importance of removing barriers for resource-poor farmers to enter innovation networks, by creating inclusive institutional environments whereby they can access necessary resources.
Ana Luisa Silva (ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa)
Paper short abstract:
How does innovation appear in development discourse and how are different development actors approaching innovation? What does the innovation narrative mean for inclusive sustainable development? This paper aims to situate the innovation for development cooperation narrative in the literature.
Paper long abstract:
For the last twenty years, innovation has become increasingly present in development cooperation discourse and practice. This trend is strengthened by the ambitious UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda: without new ideas and innovative solutions, solving the current global development challenges in a sustainable and inclusive way will not be possible. While the number of initiatives dedicated to innovation in the sector has multiplied since the Millennium Development Goals agenda, academic research on this topic remains limited. This leads to a lack of conceptual and theoretical clarity, which in turn makes studying innovation in development cooperation challenging.
What is innovation in development cooperation, how does it appear in development discourse and how are different development actors approaching innovation? In the mainstream literature, innovation is still largely understood in the classical Schumpeterian sense, equivalent to technological change: one of the key contributors to technological progress, industrialization and economic growth. In development cooperation discourse and practice, innovation generally departs from this mainstream definition but there is no unified use of the concept. Innovation is used by different actors to describe different types of innovation, such as organisational innovation, systemic innovation and social innovation.
This paper aims to situate the innovation for international development discussion in the literature, by reviewing the innovation studies literature, social innovation literature and existing development cooperation grey literature. The goal is to establish a working definition, to develop frameworks for empirical work on the topic and to understand the implications of the current innovation narrative for inclusive sustainable development.
Hannah Thinyane (United Nations University Institute of Computing and Society (UNU-CS)) Francisca Sassetti (Royal Holloway University of London, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D and MIDEQ)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the inclusive innovation framework for enhancing the critical agency of vulnerable populations, specifically the development of Apprise, a tool for improving the screening of potential victims of human trafficking and forced labour.
Paper long abstract:
According to the Global Slavery Index, 25 million people today are trapped in forced labour but remain widely unidentified, especially in Asia and the Pacific. Across supply chains, low production costs come hand in hand with exploitative working conditions, which constitute serious human rights violations. In this paper, we discuss an inclusive innovation process and purpose for designing and diffusing digital technology policy intervention. From a series of consultations held in Thailand with stakeholders, governments, NGOs and migrant workers to determine the need for a victim-identification tool, we developed Apprise, a proactive and robust tool for screening vulnerable populations such as migrant workers and identifying potential victims of human trafficking and forced labour. Although it is download on the frontline responder's phone, Apprise is ultimately a tool in the hands of the potential victim. Based on the understanding of technology as amplifier of institutional and human intent and capacity, we argue that, through higher levels of inclusive innovation, it's possible to uncover more of stakeholders and participants' (or actors') underlying motivations and tensions for using digital technology, originally aimed at enhancing the critical agency of vulnerable people. Through a design case study in Thailand, our findings showed that technologies such as Apprise can be misused by stakeholders to demonstrate victim-identification initiatives without increasing the number of identified victims and enhancing their critical agency to leave their exploitative working situation.
Amrita Saha (IDS, University of Sussex) Jodie Thorpe (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex)
Paper short abstract:
Using a case study of innovation pathways in breeding practices in the Kenyan dairy sector, we study how innovations in specific contexts lead to adoption, diffusion and upgrading, and further to structural change and inclusion or exclusion of marginalised groups.
Paper long abstract:
Innovation, accompanied by structural change, is at the heart of economic growth and development. Yet there is limited evidence to understand interactions between innovation, structural change and inclusion in the context of low-income and emerging countries, or how these processes best support sustainable and inclusive societies. Through a case study of innovation pathways in breeding practices in the Kenyan dairy sector, we study how innovations in specific contexts lead to adoption, diffusion and upgrading, and further to structural change and inclusion or exclusion of marginalised groups. The case study unpacks the conditions for these outcomes by identifying key variables, actors and interactions that shape the innovation pathways. We find that capabilities is a key variable. In particular, we find that inclusiveness and structural changes impact successive phases of innovations through 'reinforcing' or 'balancing mechanisms', operationalised by the impact of innovation on capabilities. Other factors include the presence of interrelated innovations, power relations between actors, and the role of institutions (formal and informal). The Kenyan case suggests parallel non-competing innovation pathways. Findings from the case provide the basis of future primary research on inclusive structural change.