Start Date
11-12-2016 12:00 AM
Description
In this conceptual paper, we attempt to answer the question: How do firms develop frugal IT capabilities in a resource-constrained ecosystem? Frugal firms tend to successfully overcome severe infrastructure, financial, social, and technological constraints. "Frugal IT Innovation” is a special case of frugal innovation where IT/IS play a pivotal, core role in enabling capabilities to overcome challenges of resource-constrained business environments. It is centered on development of products/services with a sharp focus on affordability, simplicity, and sustainability. Taking a digital ecodynamics perspective, we focus on the co-evolution of firm-level capabilities, the frugal ecosystem, and underlying IT systems to uncover how a dynamic, higher-order, "frugal IT innovation capability (FITIC)" drives firm performance. Due to unique ecosystem conditions, we measure firm performance by including social and environmental measures in addition to financial measures. The paper discusses ecosystem-wide implications and contributes to advancement of both theoretical and practice-based knowledge in this domain.
Recommended Citation
Ahuja, Suchit and Chan, Yolande E., "Digital Innovation: A Frugal Ecosystem Perspective" (2016). ICIS 2016 Proceedings. 10.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/DigitalInnovation/Presentations/10
Digital Innovation: A Frugal Ecosystem Perspective
In this conceptual paper, we attempt to answer the question: How do firms develop frugal IT capabilities in a resource-constrained ecosystem? Frugal firms tend to successfully overcome severe infrastructure, financial, social, and technological constraints. "Frugal IT Innovation” is a special case of frugal innovation where IT/IS play a pivotal, core role in enabling capabilities to overcome challenges of resource-constrained business environments. It is centered on development of products/services with a sharp focus on affordability, simplicity, and sustainability. Taking a digital ecodynamics perspective, we focus on the co-evolution of firm-level capabilities, the frugal ecosystem, and underlying IT systems to uncover how a dynamic, higher-order, "frugal IT innovation capability (FITIC)" drives firm performance. Due to unique ecosystem conditions, we measure firm performance by including social and environmental measures in addition to financial measures. The paper discusses ecosystem-wide implications and contributes to advancement of both theoretical and practice-based knowledge in this domain.