Governing frugal innovation for sustainable development: the hybrid domain

Although the significance of innovation has long been recognized, frugal innovation gained prominence as the idea of ‘development’ expanded beyond economic growth to encompass issues of equity and distribution in the new millennium. But relying on frugal innovation to address “wicked problems”, especially those facing the underserved at the “base of the pyramid”, has proven challenging. This chapter argues that the pursuit of frugal innovation is hampered by the conceptualisation of development as being either state-led or market-led. Instead of making a binary distinction between the public and private domains, the chapter conceptualizes, instead, the hybrid domain whose logic of collective action brings together disparate stakeholders to address issues with broad societal implications. The hybrid domain is defined by two characteristics: ‘domain flexibility’ and ‘scalar flexibility’. These characteristics are illustrated with two cases drawn from India, one in healthcare and another in rural supply chains.