Sustainability of Technology-intensive Social Innovations: The Role of Absorptive Capacity, Complementary Assets and User-orientation Xiaolan Fu and Christine Polzin University of Oxford
Dec 30, 2015
Sustainability of Technology-intensive Social Innovations:
The Role of Absorptive Capacity, Complementary Assets and User-orientation
Xiaolan Fu and Christine PolzinUniversity of Oxford
Introduction
Innovation research: Traditional focus on products, services and processes in business enterprises
How to create (and sustain) value?
Little research on social innovation Why do potentially useful social
innovations may fail to sustain or to scale up?
Case: technology-intensive social innovations in developing countries
Outline
1. Introduction2. Theoretical framework3. Methodology 4. Case studies5. Findings and Conclusions
Theoretical framework (1)
1. Social innovation Taylor (1970), Gabor (1970) Definition by Mulgan et al (2005):
Innovative activies and services Goal: meeting a social need Predominantly developed and diffused through
organisations whose primary purposes are social
2. Technology innovation Absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal
1990) Complementary assets (Teece 1986)
Theoretical framework (2)
Absorptive Capacity
Complementary assets
User-led process
TrainingE-literacy
Physical & Digital capital
Human & Organisational Processes
Networks & partnerships
TechnologyInnovation
SocialInnovation
Participatorydesign
Methodology
Case studies Criteria of selection:
Age: > 5 years, beyond pilot-stage Business model Both third sector and corporate projects Both success and failure Location: Central & South India
Interviewed 9 projects 3 typical cases emerge for comparison
Methodology
Comparison of case studies:
1) Drishtee – Microfranchising, e-services kiosks, initially based on e-governance
2) N-Logue – Microfranchising, e-services kiosks in clusters of very small villages
3) E-Choupal (ITC) – two-way distribution channel for procurement & sales
Case studies (1) - Drishtee
Source: Loonker (2004: 154-155)Business
Information provider
Villagers Government
Village Kiosks
Aggregation of local content
Information, labour, money, requests
Content:-Health
-Education-Agriculture-Local, etc
Customer Information, money,
inputs
Services: -Responses-Documents-Licenses
Request information and services
Communication
Case studies (2) – n-Logue
Source: Jhunjhunwala et al. (2004: 33)
Case studies (3)- ITC e-Choupals
Source: UNITAR (2005: 5)
Findings (1)
1) Absorptive Capacity
- Participatory skills, education and e-literacy of kiosk operators
- Facilitating skills for the design, implementation and maintenance of networks
- Control skills of governments, influence on government regulation
- Literacy levels, age and income of target groups
2) Complementary Assets
o Physical and digital infrastructure, o Human and organizational processes,
improved business conducto Generic assets (e.g. networks and
partnerships)
Example: e-Choupals
Findings (2)
Example: e-Choupals
Digital & physical
infrastructure
Human & organisational
processes
Procurement hubsE-Choupal kiosks
Unbundle price discovery
and physical transactions
at the market place
Eliminate inefficiencies inherent in thephysical flow through the
market place
Sanchalaks Samjojaks
Appointed Farmer
to handledigital
infrastructure
Former collaborator
at the market to handlephysical
infrastructure
Findings (3)
3) User-led process
- Common assumption: complete customer freedom of choice
- Constraint: interlinked contracts- Complete end-to-end solutions as
feasible social innovations
Conclusions
Research on technology-intensive social innovation can benefit from parallels in established research on traditional technology innovation
Absorptive capacity and complementary assets as technology-specific determinants of sustainability
Usage depends on the degree of freedom of customers in choosing new products and services user-led design process end-to-end solutions
Conclusions (2)
Limitations:
o Sample biaso Difficult to make generalisations