Frugal Innovation

'The recent years have witnessed significant transformation of innovation studies. As innovation researchers, we used to study innovation and assumed that it might have positive impact on numerous social issues. Nobody really assumed it was easy but with noble exceptions, we did not pay much attention to the impact innovation had on the lower strata of societies and the well-being of developing nations. Vanessa Ratten’s Frugal Innovation makes an invaluable contribution to revitalizing innovation research. The book is a hallmark in frugal innovation research and deserves to be read by anybody with an interest in the field.'— Jan Vang, Full Professor in Innovation and Operations, Section of Sustainability, Aalborg University, Denmark

'This book has two key ambitions: to provide firm theoretical grounds on the concept of frugal innovation, and to better understand, support and improve the design and management of frugal innovation. This book is a landmark contribution, not only to frugal innovation but also to innovation management and to management science.' — Professor Pascal Le Masson, MINES ParisTech, PSL Research University

'The prevailing dominant logic in most firms is to develop premium products and services for affluent customers in developed markets. While such markets are increasingly characterised as red ocean and saturated, and by stagnant growth, the low-end to mid-range market segments in mainly emerging and developing countries, but also in the developed world, are fast growing and demanding products that match their real needs - hence the growing demand for frugal innovations. However, firms are slow in developing frugal innovation strategies and general awareness is low across the board. There is an urgent need to educate managers at all levels on how to manage frugal innovation. More research is needed to answer the difficult questions and overcome the challenges. To this end Vanessa's book achieves both objectives. She succinctly conveys what is known about the topic while also directing future research to close the knowledge gaps. A great read for both innovation scholars and practitioners.' — Dr Gerrit Anton de Waal, Senior Lecturer in Innovation Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

'Frugal Innovation is a remarkable book. Through rigorous and informed research, it recovers a humanist and post-rationalist approach to the innovation process. It highlights how frugal innovation corresponds to the increased interest in emerging technologies that have allowed society to sustainably increase its quality of life in the last centuries. The author makes three important contributions: 1) clarifying the relevance of innovation modes that are clearly different from the traditional ones, thus bringing out the collective, interactive and territorial dynamics of the innovation process; 2) as a consequence, a new set of challenges and tensions are opened up to innovation policy; finally, 3) a conceptual and empirical space is emerged for the integration of different disciplinary areas in the innovation process.' — Sergio Paulo Leal Nunes, Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Center of Applied Research on Economics and Territory Management, Portugal

'Frugal Innovation by Vanessa Ratten is a significant and powerful book in the field of frugal innovation and innovation management. Ratten develops her great inspiration on frugal innovation and many connected issues contributing on a hottest research topic. This book will inspire academic community and practitioners in the worldwide context introducing research literature on frugal innovation and proposing solutions "to move the field forward".' — Rosa Lombardi, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

'Frugal Innovation by Vanessa Ratten provides the state of art of research on frugal innovation. Ratten finally succeeds in making sense of the research topic not by claiming this to be a completely new topic, but instead by linking it to what we already know about business model innovation, social entrepreneurship, as well as open and responsible innovation. While this book goes beyond providing a popular scientific perspective on frugal innovation, it still highlights countless examples and creates references across disciplines and industries, which makes it an inspiring read for researchers and managers alike.'— Elisabeth Berger, Visiting Professor of Strategic Management, Technical University Munich, Germany

'Frugal Innovation by Vanessa Ratten bridges the gap between the theoretical foundations and the practical aspects of delivering low-cost innovation. Entrepreneurship is often seen as more ‘action oriented’ but the theoretical frameworks introduced in this book enable the readers to make more informed decisions for their entrepreneurial ventures. I particularly liked the author’s conceptualization of frugal innovation as a contextual construct influenced by the socio-cultural factors. This enables a novel perspective on generating ‘local solutions’ to meet the market needs of the Asia Pacific region, particularly the developing countries. In summary, the book draws on literature to provide an action plan to deliver value to customers at the lowest cost which makes it a useful resource for both the practitioners and the academia.'— Mohsin Malik, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

‘Frugal innovation is becoming increasingly fashionable as both a concept and a suite of practices. In a resource-constrained world, a major challenge in innovation is making sure that what we create adds value not waste…there is a need to move from a discussion of the concept to exploring how to make it work. What are the underlying principles and how might they be operationalized in different contexts? What are the key tools and methodologies? What are the limits of this approach? These two books add to the growing library being published around the topic and take different but complementary perspectives. Ratten’s slim volume offers an overview and introduction to the field. It provides a high-level map of the territory, offering insights into the history of the concept and exploring different theoretical frameworks which have grown up around it. It provides a useful classification of types of frugal innovation and looks at some key perspectives around responsibility and value creation, opening up the key question of inclusion and the role which frugal innovation can play in bringing many stakeholders into the innovation process.’ ─ International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 23, No. 7, October 2019