Assessing the appropriate grassroots technological innovation for sustainable development

ABSTRACT

Grassroots technological innovation (GRTI) is perceived as a source of sustainable development while addressing local problems and needs of people belonging to the bottom of the economic pyramid. The fostering of sustainable development develops a need for scientific evaluation and subsequent diffusion of GRTI to ameliorate the livelihood of grassroots communities. It is, hence, the purpose of this research to assess the relative performance of different GRTIs with respect to economic, social, and environmental benefits. The empirical data for this study comprised of 32 GRTIs from the three different rural non-farm sectors in the Indian context. Analytical hierarchy process is used for deducing the relative assessment of the selected GRTI against the aforementioned performance criteria. The findings of this study offer imperative insights into the field of technology diffusion and development at the grassroots level and suggest recommendations for sustainable policy formulation.

KEYWORDS:

• Grassroots technological innovation
• analytical hierarchy process
• sustainable development

Acknowledgement

We are sincerely thankful to reviewers and editors for their valuable comments. We wish to extend our gratitude to Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur for providing his support and constructive comments in significantly improving the quality of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Sonal H. Singh holds PhD in innovation and entrepreneurship from Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute Technology, Kharagpur, India and is Assistant Professor in marketing and strategy at Thiagarajar School of Management, Madurai, India. Her research interests include innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainable development, leadership, sustainable entrepreneurship and start-up.

Lohithaksha M. Maiyar is presently working as Research Associate in Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. He is pursuing PhD in Industrial and System Engineering, Indian Institute Technology, Kharagpur, India. He has a good record of publications in leading international journals including 3* ABS listed Journal in the areas of supply chain management, operation research, and operations management. His research interests are in the area of Manufacturing Logistics and Supply chain design.

Dr Bhaskar Bhowmick is presently working as Assistant Professor in Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, IIT Kharagpur. He has completed Fellow from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) in Business Policy area in 2012. He is also an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC) and got certificate for Program for Development of Strategic Skills in 2006. Dr Bhowmick has industry experience of working 13 years in the industry for product development, marketing, and managing businesses. He has experience of entrepreneurship in launching small units within the multinational company folders. His research interests include technological innovation, entrepreneurship, firm environment, innovation ecosystem and institutional role.