Planning and Design Implementation
Frugal Innovation a Game Changer to Sustainable Affordable Housing
A Bibliometrics and Systematic Review
2023 Volume 11 Issue 2 Pages 199-221
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2023 Volume 11 Issue 2 Pages 199-221
Globally the demand for housing is far more than supply, resulting to 100 million+ been homeless and with one billion people living in inadequate homes. In addition, recent world crisis such as high rural urban migration, natural disasters like the Syria-Turkey earth quake, flooding, conflicts such as the ongoing Russia-Urkraine war, COVID-19 protocols of social distance and isolation, etc. exacerbates the housing deficit. Whilst the current approach to housing especially in developing countries concentrates on convention unsustainable approach to affordable housing delivery. With the few sustainable housing development attempts been far luxurious beyond average Ghanaian affordability. This research seeks to contribute to address housing deficit problems using frugal Innovation (FI) as a game changer to sustainable affordable housing (SAH) through a bibliometrics and a systematic review study. With regards to financial, resource-constrained, significant cost reductions over existing options and sustainable solutions, one idea currently gaining traction is frugal innovation (FI). It is more affordable than the conventional approach to development and can convert constraint into opportunity in a sustainable manner, as well as have a direct link to sustainable affordable development. Search for this study was on all disciplines with publications linked to frugal innovation and sustainable affordable housing limited to only online articles, conference publications, books, and other materials published in English on Scopus, science direct, and Google Scholar. The finding revealed, FI is a combination of all similar innovations, under one umbrella to serve the underserved bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) market, making it superior to other forms of innovation. This study will contribute significantly to improving the policy direction of stakeholders in an attempt to reduce the housing deficit in Ghana and other developing countries globally. In addition, it will contribute to the UN-SDGs and UN-Habitat policymakers on the sustainable cities 2030 agenda.
Frugal Innovation (FI) is becoming a standard for sustainable solutions like the SDG 2030 agenda's access to sufficient, safe, and affordable housing, basic services, and slum improvement. (Basu, Banerjee, et al., 2013). The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for sustainable, cheap, and healthful housing for everybody (UN-Habitat, 2020). Using frugal innovation to address the globally housing demand crisis, low-income homeownership concerns, issues of COVID-19 protocols of social distance and isolation, infectious disease propagation etc. sustainable affordable housing (SAH) will be the way ahead (Abdollahpour, Sharifi, et al., 2021; Oh and Gim, 2021; Razzaghi Asl, 2022). With a 60%+ share of the global economy, the housing and building sectors are the engines of socioeconomic progress. Nonetheless, it has some significant global repercussions, contributing to approximately 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions and about 60% of resource use (United Nations, 2019). There is a need for frugal innovation as a game changer for sustainable, affordable housing developments to address the huge housing deficits while avoiding the negative consequences that are often overlooked.
Frugal innovations (FI) are low-cost innovations (LCIs) produce or developed to the Bottom-of-pyramid (BOP) customers of the unserved mass market (Lim and Fujimoto, 2019; Prahalad, 2005). The "unserved" are people who cannot afford particular products, services, or housing due to high cost, complexity, functional specifications, structural components, sophisticated designs and so on (Lim and Fujimoto, 2019; Nari Kahle, Dubiel, et al., 2013). FI also refers to initiatives to make cheaper products and services for resource-constrained consumers (Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011). FI focuses on re-designing products, services, and business models to reduce complexity and lifecycle costs while preserving value and affordability for underserved BOP clients in developing nations (Agarwal and Brem, 2012; Bhatti, 2012; Rao, 2013; Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011). Frugal innovation is economically important since it produces low-cost market items for everyone, including low-income people (Sammut-Bonnici and McGee, 2014).
COVID-19 has the greatest impact in underdeveloped and densely populated city centres, particularly for the more than a billion people who reside in informal settlements and slums globally, where traffic makes it challenging to put appropriate strategies like social isolation and self-distance into practice, which increases global housing demand (UN-Habitat, 2020). Housing remains one of the world's most pressing development issues, particularly in developing countries, due to the large imbalance between supply and demand. In basic terms, the housing crisis is largely a matter of housing demand being more than supply or home prices exceeding the average worker's pay (Ghana Statistical Service, 2014; Razzaghi Asl, 2022). The situation is even worse in developing countries such that, the housing finance problem in the developing world is a dual one, with satisfactory housing properly constructed being unaffordable and informally constructed houses being unfit for human habitation (Aghimien, Adegbembo, et al., 2018).
Due to reasons such as human population increase, natural disasters, and conflict, global housing demand has reached unprecedented levels. This is more evident in developing countries, where demand is disproportionately high due to their inherent fragility (Bruen, Hadjri, et al., 2013).
The high level of underdevelopment in these countries presents not only an opportunity to avoid the problems of unsustainable development that have plagued developed countries, but also a necessity to avoid wasting scarce resources by ensuring that what is being built now is sustainable in every sense of the word, given the huge number of houses required in emerging countries (Du Plessis, 2007). Sustainable structures are frequently regarded as an expensive alternative to the traditional approach. This high initial capital cost often discourages developers and the government from investing in or pursuing sustainable housing (SH) projects. Furthermore, homebuyers frequently seek inexpensive initial capital costs and pay little attention to the life cycle or future operating costs. The current focus in efforts to address the housing shortage in developing nations is solely on affordable development while ignoring long-term sustainability. The few sustainable structures that have been built, on the other hand, are intricate and luxurious designs that are far beyond the reach of low-income individuals. Many of today's initiatives for sustainable affordable housing have failed to adequately address the major roadblocks to SAH. In contrast, the current approaches to housing delivery in developing countries continue to rely on traditional unsustainable construction technologies and execution procedures. However, frugal innovation is increasingly being used as a yardstick for evaluating sustainable solutions (Basu, Banerjee, et al., 2013). Because traditional techniques of product and service innovation in most of the developed countries have failed in the past, resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and a host of other negative effects have resulted (Lim and Fujimoto, 2019; Sammut-Bonnici and McGee, 2014). FI also refers to efforts to create goods or services at lower costs to suit the needs of consumers with limited resources (Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011). FI redesigns products, services, and business models to reduce complexity during the product's lifespan and maintain the value of high-quality, low-cost solutions for developing nations' BOP customers. (Agarwal and Brem, 2012; Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011). The economic significance of frugal innovation is the creation of low-cost goods that are accessible to everyone, even those with modest incomes (Sammut-Bonnici and McGee, 2014).
Due to global urbanisation, more than 50% of the world's population resided in cities as of 2007, and this number is anticipated to reach 60% by 2030 (United Nations, 2019). Although, it is a fact that frugal innovation is one approach that is currently gaining traction in terms of financial, sustainable solutions, Low-cost innovations, a solution to resource-constrained production & ownership, significant cost reductions over existing options, low-cost market items affordable etc. (Mahr and Imhof, 2017; Sammut-Bonnici and McGee, 2014; Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011). Little research has so far been done to apply the concept of frugal innovation to sustainable affordable housing development. This research, therefore, seeks to address housing deficit issues through sustainable affordable housing using frugal innovation as a game changer, through a bibliometric and systematic review for this study.
The two-stage analytical technique was employed to promote a comprehensive grasp of the notion of frugal innovation in relation to sustainable affordable housing, including bibliometric research and literature reviews. For this study, the bibliometric analysis was used to indicate the evolution of the field of research, while the systematic review was used to provide an overview of the present status of relevant literature in relation to frugal innovation (Vallaster, Kraus, et al., 2019). Figure 1 below gives an illustration on the review protocol for this study. While Table 1 also gives a brief comparison on the Bibliometric and Systematic Review use for this research.
| Bibliometric Analysis | Systematic Literature Review |
|---|---|
|
|
Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative method of organising an intensely collective body of literature and offers scientific mapping of the studies’ ideas and patterns (Zupic and Čater, 2015). This study used bibliometric analysis for these reasons. First, the method is simpler and more reliable than existing text analysis methods for large datasets. Second, bibliometric analysis comprehensively analyses citations, keywords, and papers to provide field-specific information. Finally, bibliometric analysis can visualise potential research fields (Bhatti and Basu, 2018).
The method quantifies research outcomes, productivities, magnitudes, and the impact of authors, journals, institutes, and other participants in a subject (Chiu and Ho, 2005, 2007). The bibliometric analysis also identifies strengths and shortcomings and research gaps confined by the number of publications, which might be a pattern for future research. Bibliometric analysis visualisations show a development map and provide advice for future research by mapping keywords for network analysis that are difficult to explain from titles, abstracts, and complete texts.
The data can help researchers discover future study areas, academic colleagues, and suitable institutions for academic careers or independent research (Geng, Chen, et al., 2017). The bibliometric study evaluates knowledge characteristics using math and stats (Mora et al., 2017). Numerous studies have demonstrated that the VOSviewer programme is suitable for processing large volumes of data and offers many advanced options to improve bibliometric visualisation (van Eck and Waltman, 2010; Fahimnia, Tang, et al., 2015). Bibliometric analysis uses VOSviewer to cluster documents with similar denotations and explain their relationships (van Eck and Waltman, 2010). The software numerically represents knowledge structure and logical progression to appropriately categorise current literature (Wang, Phelan, et al., 2018).
In June 2021, a bibliometric research hunt was conducted on all frugal innovation-related publications in Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar (Winkler, Ulz, et al., 2020). Scopus was chosen because it is the most comprehensive peer-reviewed journal database available, including the world's largest abstract and citation database (Pisoni, Michelini, et al., 2018; Winkler, Ulz, et al., 2020). Google Scholar also, includes peer-reviewed online academic journals as well as books, abstracts, scholarly literature, conference papers, and so on, and was estimated in January 2018 to contain approximately 389 million documents including articles, citations, etc. (Gusenbauer, 2019). Science Direct, on the other hand, is the world's leading source of full-text scientific, technological, and medical research (Cclibrarians, 2021). Articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, and books were mostly collected in English for this review. A total of 456 publications matched the search parameters, indicating a wide range of journals related to sustainable affordable housing and frugal innovation (Vallaster, Kraus, et al., 2019).
The results of a bibliometric analysis were performed in the final pool of literature with the help of VOSViewer, a popular network analysis software platform that helps visualise the complexities and architectures of science, to integrate and cooperate with keywords analyses to thoroughly examine and evaluate the conceptual structures of the research field (Diez-Vial and Montoro-Sanchez, 2017; van Eck and Waltman, 2010; Perera, Hurley, et al., 2019; Valenzuela, Merigó, et al., 2017; Vallaster, Kraus, et al., 2019). This was accomplished with the help of the comma-separated file format (CSV) and the Research Information System (RIS), which was created from the final literature pool and fed into VOSviewer. RIS and CSV are file formats that may be imported and exported into spreadsheet programmes such as Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheets, and OpenOffice Calc. The RIS and CSV files were converted to a variety of file formats during the research to produce the results described in this sector. The fields of data contain the names of authors, affiliations, the title of the work, the journal, and the year of publication. The research techniques for these studies have been manually collected and used as an external data field for our bibliometric analysis. (Perera, Hurley, et al., 2019).
Review of literatureThe most successful literature-based technique needed for this research aims is the systematic literature review (Tranfield, Denyer, et al., 2003). Planning, implementation, and monitoring were all done in three steps (Fink, 2005; Tranfield, Denyer, et al., 2003). The primary goals of the analysis, as well as the keywords for data search, were defined through at the planning stage. Peer-reviewed papers (journals, conference papers etc.) were used as primary sources for the data since they can be deemed as established data with current literature on FI related documents relevant for this study (Pisoni, Michelini, et al., 2018). In comparison, the researchers performed a qualitative literature assessment on leading authors, with publication on frugal innovation relevant to the study's main goal. Despite the difficulties in drawing qualitative conclusions from quantitative results due to the subjectivity of authors in qualitative literature studies, the benefits of qualitative analysis are obvious and acknowledged as the best approach based on previous systematic research studies of this nature (Kraus, Filser, et al., 2012; Prévot, Branchet, et al., 2010). It allows researchers to compare historical and contemporary research practices and recognise the qualitative features of the research environment, which helps them better grasp the field's development. Phase 2's purpose was to allow for a thorough assessment of the bibliometric process's results, verifying that the patterns discovered in bibliometric research about contextual parallels or variations in frugal innovation are consistent with the key concepts laid out in the literature (Vallaster, Kraus, et al., 2019).
This was done to gain a better understanding of existing knowledge in literature on frugal innovation that can be employed to develop affordable housing that are sustainable. One of the significant part of any research study, according to Tranfield, Denyer, et al., (2003), is to conduct a literature review. The researchers mapped and analysed the relevant intellectual territory in order to establish a research topic that will expand the knowledge base (Winkler, Ulz et al., 2020).
All literature on frugal innovation was discovered and reduced down to only documents that link frugal innovation to sustainability and affordability as the relevant documents for this study. Again, only publications in English peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, books etc. were used. Papers that merely discussed frugal innovation without any relevant information related to sustainability or affordability, on the other hand, were excluded from the review. After applying the inclusion criterion, the importance of the papers found was assessed by first reading all of the titles and abstracts of the remaining publications by all the researchers to exclude those that did not meet the inclusion criterion. Furthermore, the authors thoroughly assessed the literature pool and retrieved the most relevant research on SAH using FI that was appropriate for this study. However, the researchers acknowledge that due to the human involvement in selecting and vetting the paper pool, there may be some level of bias in the selection of literature; however, the researchers understands that this is at least one of the challenges normally associated with qualitative research. Nevertheless, this is a typical approach in systematic literature reviews, and by combining the expertise of all the researchers reviewing the literature on the topic reduces the danger of skipping relevant information for the study. (Perera, Hurley, et al., 2019).
Figure 2 illustrates the evolution of publications on frugal innovation over the last two decades, with a total of 480 publications. The earliest publication related to frugal innovation was in an article titled “Fast and frugal, but can it do lycell?” in an International Dyer publication in 1998 (Cantrell, 1998). However, became popular about 10 years later in The Economist in an article titled Health care in India: Lessons from a frugal innovator in 2009 (The Economist, 2009). However, most publications of FI were revealed to be in September 2021 with 78 papers, followed by 77 publications last year 2020.
Source: Scopus, 2021
The bibliometrics review revealed there are currently over 866 subject areas with related documents on frugal innovation research publications. However, business, management and accounting are primarily the predominant subject area with 22.9% of FI-related publications representing 198. Probably because business, management and accounting are the driving force in all sectors or industries around the global economy. Furthermore, Figure 3 illustrates Engineering (15.5%) with 134 FI-related publications as the second most common research discipline, this uses scientific principles to achieve frugal innovations; the next research direction of the FI is in the social sciences that follow the behaviour and culture of people at the BOP in providing their products and services with 119 publications representing 13.7% of subject areas related to FI. Computer science (9.8%), medicine (6.8%), economics, econometrics and finance (6.2%) were the general subject areas respectively in order of the number of publications.
Generally, the relevant subjects areas related to this study are as follows; engineering with high-reliability design, materials, and process to meet the state-of-the-art design and engineering solutions. Environmental; offers a reduction in resource consumption leading to minimize environmental impact. Management with process and controls in managing cost reduction in development; and economics and social science resolving in the development of housing to address extreme low-cost problems for the unserved BOP within the housing bracket.
Source: Scopus, 2021
Source: Scopus, 2021
Figure 4 is an illustration of FI documents type based on publications, from the figure it can be seen that research articles are currently the most common types with 275 out of 480 publications documents types representing 57.3% of the total documents. Followed by, conference papers (94 document types), book chapters (41 document types) and reviews (25 document types) respectively with 19.6%, 8.5% and 5.2% of the total publication were the common type of documents with frugal innovation literature.
Authors /citations by authorsIn comparing the document counts of 480 publications on frugal innovation that were found through our bibliometric search for this study and had over 400 authors, as shown in Figure 5 and Table 2 Out of the more than 400 authors in this field of study, Brem, A., had the highest number of documents on frugal innovation, with eleven (11) publications. Maussion, P., and Hossain, M. were the next authors, each with ten (10) publications, followed by Mourtzis, D., Agarwal, and Jagtap, each with seven (7) publications, and then N., Belkadi, F., Bernard, A., and Harris, M., all with the same amount of six (6) publications.
Additionally, the researchers compared how often each author was cited in frugal innovation-related papers, as shown in Table 2, and found that Brem A. received the most citations out of the 286 writers at the time of this study. Hossain M. was the next most-cited author with 228 citations, followed by Grossmann O. (215 citations with only 4 publications), Zeschy M.B. (173, 162 citations), Halme M., and Prabhu J. (143 citations), in that order. Additionally, Agarwal N., Bocken N.M.P., and Short S.W. came in second place with 137 citations each in articles dealing with frugal innovation. The Table 3 also shows the list of some relevant documents by authors with the most citation for this study.
Source: Scopus, 2021
| id | label | cluster | weight<Links> | weight<Total link strength> | weight<Documents> |
weight< Citations> |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 133 | Brem A. | 25 | 169 | 284 | 11 | 286 |
| 405 | Hossain M. | 23 | 250 | 545 | 9 | 228 |
| 330 | Gassmann O. | 7 | 194 | 283 | 4 | 215 |
| 1019 | Zeschky M.B. | 7 | 180 | 228 | 2 | 173 |
| 381 | Halme M. | 27 | 155 | 196 | 4 | 162 |
| 752 | Prabhu J. | 6 | 114 | 138 | 3 | 143 |
| 6 | Agarwal N. | 20 | 113 | 157 | 6 | 137 |
| 114 | Bocken N.M.P. | 18 | 15 | 19 | 1 | 137 |
| 857 | Short s.W. | 18 | 15 | 19 | 1 | 137 |
| 775 | Rao B.C. | 28 | 189 | 251 | 5 | 129 |
| 1000 | Winterhalterprof. | 7 | 165 | 199 | 1 | 127 |
| 803 | Rosca E. | 2 | 128 | 197 | 3 | 122 |
| 91 | Bendul J.C. | 2 | 127 | 189 | 2 | 120 |
| 677 | Noubactep C. | 26 | 11 | 15 | 5 | 115 |
| 431 | Iyer G.R. | 4 | 91 | 109 | 1 | 103 |
| 847 | Sharma A. | 4 | 91 | 109 | 1 | 103 |
Source: Generated from VosViewer, 2021
| Author (s) | Topic | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. Brem & B. Ivens | Do frugal and reverse innovation foster sustainability? Introduction of a conceptual framework | 2013 |
Journal of Technology Management for Growing Economies |
|
R.Khan, J. Lev€anen,M. Hossain T. Lyytinen, A. Hyv€arinen, S. Numminen & M. Halme |
How frugal innovation promotes social sustainability Implications of frugal innovations on sustainable development: Evaluating water and energy innovations | 2016 | Sustainability |
| T. Weyrauch & C. Herstatt | What is frugal innovation? Three defining criteria | 2016 | Journal of Frugal Innovation |
| B.C. Rao | Alleviating poverty in the twenty-first century through frugal innovations | 2014 | R. Soc. Open Sci. 6. |
| E. Rosca, M. Arnold & J.C. Bendul |
Business models for sustainable innovation - An empirical analysis of frugal products and services |
2017 | Journal of Cleaner Production |
| Y.A. Bhatti | What is Frugal, What is Innovation? Towards a Theory of Frugal Innovation (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2005910). | 2012 |
Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY. |
| Agarwal, N. & Brem, A., | Frugal and reverse innovation -Literature overview and case study insights from a German MNC in India and China, in: | 2012 | 18th International ICE Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation (ICE). pp. 1–11. |
Source: Generated from VosViewer, 2021
Frugal innovation is mostly well known in India where it is commonly believed to have originated, and this is illustrated on Figure 6 and Figure 7 with the largest number of 78 documents by country of scholars representing 12% of total documents, the United States is the second largest country with 65 documents also representing 10%. Followed by Germany with 9% of 64 publications by country as the third. Afterwards was the United Kingdom with 9% with 61 publications as the fourth country, followed by France with 49 documents as the fifth country with the most publications on frugal innovation-related documents with 7%; also next was Finland, Netherlands, Italy, China and Australia with 22,22,19,18 and 16 documents by country respectively. Although the origination and applications of frugal innovation are commonly from Asian countries such as India and China, Publications are predominantly now in the West accounting for over 60% of publications concentrated mostly in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Finland, Netherland, Italy, Australia etc.
Source: Scopus, 2021
Source: Generated from VosViewer,2021
The Sustainability Switzerland currently has the most publication sources of frugal innovation documents with fifteen (15) articles, followed by Contributions to Management Science and the Journal of Cleaner Production with thirteen (13) each, the European Journal of Development Research and International Journal of Technology Management also with ten (10) documents each published in FI related. Also, followed next is the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management with nine (9) documents, followed next was Technology in Society and Technological Forecasting and Social Change with seven (7) documents each, while Procedia CIRP had six (6) publications as the common sources of frugal innovation documents (Figure 8).
Source: Scopus, 2021
Frugality is characterised as optimal and an art de Vivre, to mean modest and minimal resource consumption, to unlock the mind towards spiritual values including self-independence, societal harmony and justice or seeking God’s ultimate’s realism (Bouckaert, Opdebeeck, et al., 2008).
Furthermore, Bouckaert, Opdebeeck, et al., (2008), explained frugality as religious and philosophical origins both in the West and Eastern traditions, linked to religious practises such as self-restriction, asceticism and free-chosen poverty. They studied how frugality might be a vital prerequisite for good global sustainability and intergenerational fairness in the book ‘Frugality: Rebalancing Material and Spiritual Values in Economic Life' (Bouckaert, Opdebeeck, et al., 2008). Sustainability, like frugality, aims for great long stability of financial, social, and environmental goals with limited material welfare for the sake of future generations (Bouckaert, Opdebeeck, et al., 2011). Although the frugality concept has some philosophical such as Epicurean ethics or Stoicism as well as religious like Christianity and Buddhism roots (Bouckaert, Opdebeeck, et al., 2008), and in academic discourse such as; humanities, social and economic sciences, engineering etc., the combination of the term frugal and innovation is quite recent (Tiwari, Kalogerakis, et al., 2016). The Oxford Dictionaries define "frugal" as "simple and basic and costing little (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017)". Furthermore, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines frugal as "characterised by or representing resource use economy" ('The Frugal,' 2018), and it can be traced back to the Latin adjective frugal, which is generally synonymous with discipline and being good and was later used to signify the concept of being sparing or thrifty. Although the concept of FI is new to academic study, the term "frugal" on the another hand is common and the definition of frugality is not new; but was derived from the Latin term 'frugal' (frugalis) in the mid-sixteenth century, to mean modest, thrifty and specifically addressed adequate product consistency with suitability, and handiness within resource constraints (Roiland, 2016; Soni and Krishnan, 2014; Tiwari, Kalogerakis, et al., 2016).
Origins and evolution of frugal innovationFrugality has been prevalent in academic debates for a long period; the conception of frugal innovation quite recent, emerging in the last year of the past decade. Notwithstanding, most scholars acknowledge that the concept of frugal innovation dates back to the term “frugal engineering,” coined in 2006 by Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, who succeeded in inventing the term “frugal engineering” (Kumar and Puranam, 2012; Soni and Krishnan, 2014). According to this research, the first document related to frugal innovation was published in 1998 in International Dye publication with the title "Fast and frugal, but can it do lycell?" explaining how to overcome difficulties in fibre processing using special wet processing methods based on recent innovation from machine manufacturers (Cantrell, 1998). Gupta and Wang's (2009) analysis, on the other hand, indicated that the first global scholarly premiere of frugal innovation was in a minor section of a strategy book in China. However, most researchers agree that the Business Journal The Economist was the first to merge frugality and innovation in 2009, in a publication titled Health care in India: Lessons from a frugal innovator (The Economist, 2009), and also, in an art essay “The World Turned Upside Down: A Report on Innovation in Emerging Markets”, in the section of “First Break All the Rules - The Charms of Frugal Innovation”, released by the economist in 2010 (The Economist, 2010; Tiwari, Kalogerakis, et al., 2016).
Concept & Benefits of frugal innovationIn general, frugal innovation (FI) refers to efforts to create products or services that have significant cost advantages in response to requests for severe resource-constrained customer compared to present options (Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011). FI focuses on re-designing products, infrastructure, as well as business models to reduce uncertainty throughout the overall lifecycle costs and sustainable options for BOP customers in developing nations (Agarwal and Brem, 2012; Bhatti, 2012; Rao, 2013; Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011). As a result, FI's focus is on the product creation process, notably the development of technologies and business models within resource constraints or in a way that reduces production and distribution costs, to pass on cost savings to the consumer (Onsongo and Knorringa, 2020). According to ‘The Economist,' “frugal innovation requires more than just revamping items; it entails rethinking through the entire manufacturing processes and business models” (The Economist, 2010). The economic significance of frugal innovation is the production of low-cost mass-market items available to all socioeconomic strata, such as the less affluent portions (Sammut-Bonnici and McGee, 2014). It is distinguished by a scarcity of cash for the development of low-cost technologies that are safe for the climate and populace. In contrast to typical product development approaches, these resource-constrained product development methodologies may result in more sustainable items, resulting in lower energy use and higher supply chain efficiencies (Khan, 2016; Sharma and Iyer, 2012). FI is vital in achieving social sustainability; it supports SDGs and contributes to the greater goal of sustainable development (Khan, 2016). Frugal innovation is also linked to sustainability because it is more sustainable and more widely available than traditional technology due to its reduced use of resources (raw materials, manufacturing resources, electricity, heat, water, waste, and financial resources) (Albert, 2019). Frugal innovation is beneficial to the grassroots because of its safe and low-cost existence, and advanced forms have become increasingly popular in recent years (Rao, 2019). The theories of frugal and reverse technologies are recent additions to the history of invention. Frugal innovation expresses the core concept of innovating under resource limits, whereas reverse innovation refers to a radical shift in thought and reality inventions from low-income contexts to affluent ones, a significant departure from the prior model of innovation (Simula, Hossain, et al., 2015). FI depicts a modern entrepreneurial landscape in which small enterprises with limited capital produce technology for underserved consumers in low-income regions. FI also creates new industries that contribute to sustainability (Hossain, 2020). The paradigm of Frugal Innovation is working to turn the disadvantage of resource scarcity into an asset by reacting to local consumer needs, resulting in a modern business model with low-cost and high-value customer solutions (Mourtzis, Zogopoulos, et al., 2019). Wang, Phelan, et al. (2018), research revealed that the future of building expansion should not only be inspired on just impending concerns such as climate-change uncertainty and a lack of finance, but also by technological innovations and cultural upheavals. Sustainable development entails balancing scientific and technological developments for the growth of humanity while safeguarding the planet's richness. In this view, the emergence of low-cost, technological goods capable of economically absorbing energy is a positive influence (Rao, 2017).
The above FI benefits clearly demonstrate how SAH development can have significant cost advantages in dealing with resource-constrained consumer concerns in general. Advantages of new home designs in terms of overall lifecycle costs for BOP seekers in developing nations. FI aids SAH developers by lowering costs for housing owners and clients with limited means. The application of FI to SAH will allow for a rethinking of housing development with improvements while providing diverse housing models to address the needs of all classes of individuals with limited resources as home seekers to meet their socioeconomic demands. FI is crucial in attaining access to decent housing for all at low cost as part of the SDG 2030 for social sustainability development. Using FI in the SAH perspective has the advantage of solving more sustainability challenges than previous strategies, which are focused on lowering resource usage throughout the development lifestyle. Housing seekers will benefit more from FI, as developers capitalize on the possibility of converting seeker resource constraints to advantage by expanding more market sector of demands through alternative housing delivery.
FI applications based on review of literatureThe systematic review revealed the existing definitions of frugal innovation in the application areas differ. Unlike (Zeschky, Widenmayer, et al., 2011), who only consider products, Basu, Banerjee, et al. (2013), Bound and Thornton (2012) further consider services. Frugal innovation is a type of business model innovation, (Bhatti and Ventresca, 2013; George, McGahan, et al., 2012). Tiwari and Herstatt, (2014) gave the most detailed definition, describing frugal innovations as "products (goods and services), process and approach." The application of frugal innovation is very relevant since it can span across several fields of disciplines journals and applications in practice. The following are examples of FI applications in some sectors such as ;
In the health industry, FI has been used as a cost-effective, self-designed single-port device that allows any surgeon in the world to perform incision operations without investing in expensive ports, disposable instruments, sealing instruments or self-locking stitches (Reynders and Baekelandt, 2015). Also, in the field of information and communication technology (ICT), Nokia 1100 and Nokia 101 mobile phones manufactured by Nokia Corporation have been built to provide for millions of low-income earners in developing countries, without communication facilities (Agnihotri, 2015; Simula, Hossain, et al., 2015). Micromax, an electronics corporation based in India through the FI model, has produced mobile phones that do not need regular recharging for up to a month or longer, i.e. 30 days standby at US$ 45 (Singh, 2013). In 2007, Safaricom, Kenya's biggest mobile network service provider, launched M-Pesa, a mobile phone money transfer and micro-finance service that not only revolutionised financial transfers but also networking trends in Africa (Agnihotri, 2015; Hughes and Lonie, 2007). Tata Motors, an Indian company, launched the world’s cheapest car called the Tata Nano in India in 2009 for 2,000 US dollars (S. Ray and P. Ray, 2011). In the financial sector, Vortex's ATM has been designed with economical technology for the easy-to-use ATM solution in rural India, which delivers less than 90% of the performance of Vortex ATMs. Air conditioning is not needed except in extremely hot weather. The Vortex ATM is powered by solar energy and with just five hours of sunshine, a charge is enough for backup for 24 hours without recharge (Prabhu and Gupta, 2014). In addition, FI was used to enable biometric devices for uneducated people to do transactions without entering numeric codes (Hossain, 2017). In addition, a Mitticool-a clay refrigerator was built by a potter to provide successful cooling without electricity in India (Rao, 2013). Although there is currently not much literature on the implementation of frugal innovation in the building and housing industry, there is a lot of evidence based on the various examples of FI implementations in other fields and the above literature, that the concept of frugal innovation can be used as a game changer to overcome sustainable affordable housing problems. Because the findings depicts how versatile FI can be cost-effective, solutions for low-income earners in developing countries, durability & robustness making it relevant for sustainable affordable housing development.
Discussion of resultsThe bibliometric and systematic review study found that the first publication connected to frugal innovation was in 1998. However, FI became popular roughly ten years later, in 2009.
More frugal innovation publications occurred in the year 2020, which is a decade after its popularity in the Economist magazine. Also, FI recorded it most publications since its inception in the year 2021 as at the time of this study, implying that there is a bright future for frugal innovation in the next ten (10) years based on the high rate at which more scholars are developing interest in recent times. Frugal innovation research is mostly focused on the business, management, and accounting sectors, as well as engineering and social science; business administration may be because they are the driving force in all sectors or industries throughout the world's economy. Engineering, like Social Sciences, uses scientific methods to achieve the core aim of frugal innovation, whereas Engineering considers the behaviour and culture of people at the BOP in the provision of their products and services. The majority of frugal innovation documents are mostly in peer-review journal publications, with more than 56 per cent of articles in frugal innovation, which is very important to this subject area because journals frequently have up-to-date information on literature, which means there are a lot of recent publications on frugal innovation for reference. According to the findings, the following researchers are now prominent scholars in frugal innovation publications: Brem, A., Maussion, P., Hossain, M., Mourtzis, D., Agarwal, N., Belkadi, F., Bernard, A.,Harris M., Jagtap, and others. Frugal innovation is best known in India, where it began, with the greatest number of publications, followed by the United States. Although frugal innovation originated in Asia, Western publications currently account for more than 60% of all publications, with the majority coming from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, and Australia. However, frugal innovation research appears to be mostly focused on five (5) nations globally, namely India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, accounting for more than 45 per cent of total FI publications. Unsurprisingly, India is the top country in FI publications probably because it possesses all of the required market circumstances for accepting frugal technologies. The study revealed India often to be regarded as a potential “ideal laboratory” for conceptualising and implementing FI, not just in resource-constrains situations but globally as well. Also, researchers have believe India's rising significance in FI is due to its enormous and large population of pepole with the large unserved market with resource constrain resulting in creating a cost and demand advantages .
FI is currently dominant in the West, as a result of the historical trade and cultural ties between India and the West with many Indian authers based in the West or based in India with strong ties to Western universities. The Journal of Cleaner Productions, Contributions to Management Science and Sustainability Switzerland are currently contending as the main publishers with the most publication sources of frugal innovation as at the time of this study. Furthermore, the study examined various examples of the implementation of frugal innovation in a variety of disciplines to serve as lessons and contribute considerably to the achievement of this research goal. The review revealed that the application of FI to SAH can lead to significant benefits such as the possibility to address the housing deficit in a sustainable affordable approach throughout the lifecycle of a house in the following; at the User/Market level it would contribute to providing housing solutions to the unserved market, Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP), new/emerging market as well developing and developed market through, the development /product/services with extremely low-cost housing development, with high reliable building design to meet state-of-the-art design/engineering, energy conservation, solid waste management, reducing carbon footprints, recycling, substantial cost reduction in production with optimal performance level, specific needs of housing user/market of unserved BOP would properly be integrated at the starting point and work backwards rather than the current approach to affordable housing development by most governments and firms in developing countries which is unsustainable and above the average threshold of housing seekers. As a result, this assessment serves as a foundation for addressing the BOP's unserved large majority in the housing sector with sustainable affordable housing hence the call for frugal innovation as a game changer to SAH.
Why frugal innovation a game changer to SAHThe Bibiliomatric and systematic review of this study explore the concept of FI as an approach to address the housing deficit sustainably and affordably using frugal innovation as a game changer to SAH solutions to the unserved new and emerging market at the BOP. FI can be a game changer to SAH because FI to some extent is a combination of all similar concepts as a means to unite diverse concpets under one umbrella to address the needs of the unserved of the BOP market, especially with developing countries as the focal point (Adari and Lakshmipathy, 2015); Tiwari and Herstatt, 2012). Consequently, the frugal innovation concept is seen as superior in the hierarchy to other types of innovation by some scholars based on the fact that it tries to unite other types under one umbrella (Adari and Lakshmipathy, 2015). Hence, can be the most effective concept for addressing the huge housing deficit in developing countries in a sustainable affordable manner.
Also, the sustainability debates have failed to provide a clear and effective way how to achieve sustainable affordable housing. The Brundtland Commission, defined sustainable development as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987)”. However, this definition is argued to fail in precise clarification of what has to be done by companies exactly, especially in terms of new product development (Baumgartner, 2011; Pujari, 2006). Hence, this led to the criticism of the conception and wide approval of the triple bottom line as measures to address sustainable development more effectively, defined as the “simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social equity (Elkington, 1997)”. Also, criticism of this concept comes in the sense that, social change cannot just be realized with a ‘black box’, a concept such as social, environmental and economic aims should not only be just stated as sustainability but should be linked and explained specifically how to be achieved (Gibbs, 2006). FI, therefore, provides a clear clarification and direction on how to reduce the cost of production with criteria such as concentrating on significant cost reduction, core functionality as well as the optimal level of performance (Weyrauch and Herstatt, 2017), unlike other methods which merely mentions the word sustainability and affordability without any effective way forward, therefore making FI and effective concept to address sustainability. Therefore, making FI whiles serving people in untapped markets of the BOP as an important aspect provides an opportunity for companies or housing developers to benefit from this gap by opening new customer segments and thus, generate higher revenues consequently serving social, economic and environmental factors (Knorringa, Peša, et al., 2016). FI can be an easy way to reduce housing deficit through sustainable affordable means, especially for developing countries, such as the largely untapped market for private housing developers to make a profit, governments to reduce housing challenges for their citizens and provide housing that has previously been too expensive or unattainable, for the unserved BOP housing seekers making it a win-win scenario for all stakeholders (Pansera, 2013). FI is also unique such that it overs better alternative than the convention approach to sustainability with extreem cost reduction potential for SAH development.
The bibliometric and systematic review study established FI is progressively garnering attention from scholars for a decade now in a variety of fields of study. The majority of publications occurred in the year 2021 as at the time of this study. Even though the FI research direction spans multiple subjects, the majority of publications are predominantly in the Business, Management, Accounting, Engineering, and Social Science sectors. The common subject areas related to this study are established mostly in business, management, economics and social science as the driving force in all sectors or industries around the world's economy. While engineering often, like Social Sciences, uses scientific methods to achieve the core aim of frugal innovation, as well as considers the behaviour and culture of people in the BOP market in the provision of their products, services or development. The environmental area, relates to in the reduction of resource consumption leading to minimize environmental impact; cost reduction in development. Currently, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France control over 45 per cent of global publications in FI, with India being the top research country in FI, followed by the United States. As of the time of this analysis, the Contributions to Management Science magazine, the Journal of Cleaner Productions, and Sustainability Switzerland were the major publishers with the most published sources of frugal innovation documents on FI.
The systematic review concludes that FI can be a game changer for SAH because FI has a direct link to SAH in several dimensions, including the possibility to address the housing deficit in a sustainable affordable approach throughout the lifecycle of a house to the unserved, development with extremely low-cost housing, highly reliable building design to meet state-of-the-art design/engineering, substantial cost reduction in production with optimal performance level, It's cheaper and easier than conventional development. FI is better than other types of innovation because it combines jugaad, disruptive, Gandhian, and other innovations to serve the unserved BOP market. This allows developing country housing players including corporations, developers, and governments to adjust to produce SAH. leveraging FI to address the massive housing shortfall while profiting in a largely unexplored market by offering homes that were previously too expensive or unaffordable for the unserved BOP housing searchers, producing a win-win scenario. The literature shows that frugal innovation links sustainability and affordability. However, frugal innovation is growing in healthcare, electric and electronic, transportation, banking, ICT, energy, and more. The survey found little FI focus on affordable housing, sustainable development, or the construction industry. Thus, this research lays the foundation for addressing the unserved majority in the BOP housing market, leveraging frugal innovation as a game changer to effectively address sustainable affordable housing problems, particularly in developing nations with acute housing crises.
LimitationThe search for this study was limited to only articles, conference publications, books, and other materials published in English on Scopus, science direct, and Google Scholar. As a result, the possibility of eliminating some important information that might have been necessary for this study but could not be found online because most frugal innovation originates at the grassroots and in local contexts, and thus may not be published or published outside the research data based selected for this study. Furthermore, some of the valuable papers may be in languages other than English; however, the review for this study was limited to solely English publications relevant to this topic. Our research, like any other, has limitations. Although we attempted to minimise the specific shortcomings of both the quantitative and qualitative study designs by combining them, the qualitative analysis, in particular, is prone to potential researcher biases. We could only identify the citations, as with any bibliometric analysis, but we don't know whether they were quotes in a positive or negative sense. Despite its limitations, this study will provide scholars and future researchers with literature on sustainable affordable housing employing the frugal innovation idea in the effort to address the housing crisis, particularly in developing nations (Vallaster, Kraus, et al., 2019).
Future research directionFuture studies should focus on frugal innovation in the construction business, sustainable construction, BIM systems, and smart buildings in the housing sector, as this facet has received little attention. Future studies should also attempt to build a framework for SAH employing FI as part of a response to some academics' desire to systematize frugal innovation, as well as to use frugal innovation in the construction sector, which was not within the scope of this study.
Conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft preparation, D. M. D. Y.; Supervision, writing – review & editing Y. A. D. D.; supervision, writing – review & editing M. N. A.. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of the paper.
