Over the last two decades, several popular concepts have emerged in the management research. These concepts include open innovation, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and frugal innovation. I have the honor to witness the rise of these concepts and contribute in all these research fields. See the attached file which show the growth of the publications on these topics. The figures are based on searching results using each concept as search word limiting in the title of the articles
Open innovation had been the hottest topic in the last decade, I assume. Many top-notch scholars published papers on open innovation. Crowdsourcing is a popular concept. However, there is a limited number of articles on crowdsourcing in top journals. Crowdfunding is a very recently emerged concept that is growing its popularity at an exponential rate. Frugal innovation as a concept has yet to get adequate attention from the scholars. The fate of some these concepts depends on the nature of data. For example, it is easier to collect data to pursue quantitative research on crowdfunding while it is almost impossible to collect data to conduct quantitative research on frugal innovation.
These four concepts have advanced our knowledge, but they have also confused us as well. It seems that crowdfunding will continue its popularity. I assume both open innovation and crowdsourcing will lose their luster in the long run. Frugal innovation will grow at a steady pace.
I would be happy know what is your take on these and other concepts of the management field from the research lens.
Frugal, or Gandhian innovation, is being conducted in many villages in India and other countries. Such innovation is not researched upon, as it is a villager's response to a long-standing problem. You might like to include 'jugaad' innovation and study Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN). An Indian company, Mitticool, makes earthen ware and even a refrigerator. The Honeybee network says that 70 technologies have been commercialised, 700 patents have been filed, and 10,000 innovations are being used in villages. So it is not correct to say it will grow at a steady pace: it is in fact exploding.
All these cases I have covered in my book on Rural Marketing. You might be interested to take a look.
Book Rural Marketing: Opportunities and Challenges
from a construct analysis vantage point, how old are these concepts?
also, will these concepts really be 'commercialized' - what is their scope, context or position? i struggle to see something like open innovation being utilized in certain organizations, or i need to think harder. this implies their application would be specific and confined to certain contexts
The key would be to clearly define these concepts/terms firms, which is a difficult task. Once we understand what the similarities and differences are then we can start to develop a more indepth understanding of these terms. I was wondering whether there are any papers that theoretically compare and contrast these terms.
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