Increasing Or Decreasing Frugality

The Connection Between Digitalisation And Frugal Innovation

Journal Article (2024)
Author(s)

Erwin van Tuijl ( Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, International Centre for Frugal Innovation)

Juan Carlo Intriago (International Centre for Frugal Innovation, TU Delft - Water Resources)

Peter Knorringa ( Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, International Centre for Frugal Innovation)

Research Group
Water Resources
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1142/S1363919624500130
More Info
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Publication Year
2024
Language
English
Research Group
Water Resources
Issue number
3-4
Volume number
28
Pages (from-to)
1-27
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Abstract

Within wider debates on sustainability and digitalisation, frugal innovation (FI) scholars largely assume that digital technologies are important for FI in realising more sustainable outcomes. However, very few studies interrogate this causality. To tackle this challenge, we connect FI with digitalisation. Thereto, we conceptualise digital technologies as and within FIs and discuss three frugality dimensions to analyse three empirical case studies of digitally-enabled FIs. We use these cases to introduce new nuances on how digitalisation affects frugality and scaling. Our results unveil that digitalisation can increase frugality by enabling more accessible and affordable solutions through new flexible funding schemes and pay-as-you-go models. However, our evidence also implies decreasing frugality by an increase in end-user costs and digital exclusion. Likewise, increasing frugality through complexity reduction seems mainly to benefit intermediaries and frugal innovators themselves, whereas benefits of digitalisation in terms of complexity reduction for end-users seem to be limited. Digitalisation can even increase complexity for end-users, thus suggesting decreasing frugality. Finally, just like with non-digital innovations, scaling of digitally enabled innovations is dependent on the quality of logistical infrastructure and local adaptation practices. Moreover, scaling of digitally-enabled innovations is limited to users in regions with a proper ICT infrastructure.