On the Drivers and Obstructers of Private Sector Inclusive Innovation Activity

In the economics and management science literature, there is a growing stream that explores how inclusive innovations generated or diffused by private sector actors can help address national or global development challenges. At present, however, these works are not definitive on when, how or why an innovation should be considered inclusive and how private actors can contribute more effectively to development through the creation and diffusion of inclusive innovations, especially in contexts of deep poverty and/or marginalization.

To contribute to closing this gap, the present research, conducted with Suma Athreye, Abhijit Sengupta and Serdar Türkeli, undertakes a systematic review of the literature on inclusive innovations, builds a unifying definition from the existing ones, and draws a set of theoretical constructs on their generation, diffusion and likely impact.

These frameworks attempt to identify the interrelations between innovation features, innovation system characteristics, actor strategies and possible impact of inclusive innovations. These are tested against 58 case studies of inclusive innovation involving private actors such as firms, NGOs, and charities compiled from reports of the Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte), OECD, the website of Acumen, and some highly publicized cases on the internet.

The different pathway configurations of causal conditions leading to desired outcomes are identified and analysed by applying set theoretic qualitative comparative analysis on the case studies.

About the speaker

Professor Shyama V. Ramani is Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT (United Nations University, The Netherlands) and Founder-Director of Friend In Need Trust (an NGO in India)