Consumer Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid: Emerging Patterns of User Innovation in a Resource-Scarce Setting

Approximately one-third of the world's population lives in poverty at the global Base of the economic Pyramid (BoP). Sarah Praceus quantitatively investigates patterns and characteristics of a large sample of innovations developed by people living at the BoP in India. Their differences and commonalities versus consumer innovations from the developed world are identified. Furthermore, Sarah Praceus examines the effects of innovation-relevant resources and contextual factors on the innovative outcomes at the BoP. The findings indicate that poor consumer innovators and their wealthier counterparts share similar stable demographic predispositions and preferences while the phenomenon adapts to the different living conditions at the BoP. Finally, user innovation research from developed markets appears not to be entirely transferable to subsistence markets.