Sustainability-driven innovation at the bottom: Insights from grassroots ...

Technological Forecasting & Social Change 114 (2017) 327–338

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Technological Forecasting & Social Change

Sustainability-driven innovation at the bottom: Insights from grassroots ecopreneurs Soumodip Sarkar a,b, Mario Pansera c,d,⁎ a

Asia Center, Harvard University, USA CEFAGE-UE and Department of Management, University of Évora, Palácio do Vimioso (Gab. 224), Largo Marquês de Marialva, 8, 7000-809 Évora, Portugal University of Exeter Business School, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4PU, UK d Academy of Business in Society, Av. Moliere 128, 1190 Brussels, Belgium b c

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 11 August 2015 Received in revised form 25 August 2016 Accepted 26 August 2016 Available online 2 September 2016 Keywords: Grassroots entrepreneurs Ecopreneurs Sustainability Innovation Value creation

a b s t r a c t This research focuses on a little studied area within the future of global sustainability, that of grassroots ecopreneurs. While living and working in resource-constrained environments these entrepreneurs strive to create economic value by combining social and environmental goals. Relying on inductive methodology based on eight cases, the paper analyses how innovations are being crafted with little or no resources, yet provoking a great impact in their local communities and beyond. We find the grassroots ecopreneurs pursuing a triple bottom line approach, from the harmonic combination of economic, social and environmental goals that have the potential to shape the future of sustainability on global basis. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Entrepreneurship is increasingly seen as a solution to sustainability challenges, and is considered to be a central force in the development of ecological and socially sustainable economies (Munõz and Dimov, 2015; Pacheco et al., 2010; York and Venkataraman, 2010). Furthermore, within the broader entrepreneurial phenomenon, those at the grassroots have been identified as an alternative source for the development of innovations that may contribute to shifts towards more sustainable systems of consumption and production (Monaghan, 2009). Grassroots entrepreneurs have been defined as those who “seek innovation processes that are socially inclusive towards local communities in terms of the knowledge, processes and outcomes involved” (Smith et al., 2014). Grassroots entrepreneurial movements can potentially deliver sustainable socio-technical solutions to many problems including energy, health care and food, leading to a transition towards more sustainable ways of production and consumption (Hargreaves et al., 2013; Seyfang and Longhurst, 2013; Seyfang and Smith, 2007). The increasing importance of grassroots entrepreneurs have led to calls to better understand the emergence, dynamics and framing of locally-oriented entrepreneurial narratives in the face of resource scarcity (Pansera and Owen, 2015; Smith and Ely, 2015; Smith et al., 2014). These are narratives informed by an area of research that has ⁎ Corresponding author at: University of Exeter Business School, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4PU, UK. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Sarkar), [email protected] (M. Pansera).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2016.08.029 0040-1625/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

come to be termed as ‘sustainable entrepreneurship’, which is the common ground between the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability. Given the substantial challenges facing the environment, the importance of entrepreneurship to sustainability is increasingly recognized along with the need to enable entrepreneurs to achieve this vision of sustainability (Dean and McMullen, 2007). It has also been considered that “sustainable entrepreneurship research may increase our understanding of how and why entrepreneurial action can generate gains for society” (Shepherd and Patzelt, 2011, p. 152). We respond to such a call, by focusing on a subset of entrepreneurs, grassroots ecopreneurs, defined as grassroots entrepreneurs moved by social and environmental concerns, coming up with simple and ecofriendly solutions in their quest to resolve everyday life problems. Ecopreneurship is emerging as a new academic field of research (Schaper, p. 7, in Aras and Crowther, 2012), where the focus has so far been to explore the links between sustainability and innovation, and the role played by small and medium-sized enterprises. Ecopreneurs are important because they have “the potential to be a major force in the overall transition to a more sustainable business paradigm” (Aras and Crowther, 2012, p. 11). Moreover, the emerging field of ecopreneurship is “distinguished from other forms of corporate environmental development by the company's vivid commitment to environmental progress and its strong desire for business growth” (Schaltegger, 2002, p. 48). Ecopreneurs are Schumpeterian in the sense that they “destroy existing conventional production methods, products, market structures and consumption patterns” (Schaltegger, 2002, p. 46), creating products and services which are environmentally friendly. Their behavior lies in contrast with the Kirznerian (Kirzner,

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1973) view of entrepreneurship (Gibbs and O'Neill, 2012), whereby entrepreneurial opportunities are not simply identified by the person with superior qualities but arise out of alertness from information asymmetries (Lans et al., 2014). Although there is a rising scholarly interest on ecopreneurs (Aras and Crowther, 2012; Gibbs, 2009), very little is known about grassroots ecopreneurs. These are bottom-up actors, who are cognizant of their milieu and their community's specific needs and resources, contexts that can be hard to grasp by those on the outside. Recent research has also found that grassroots entrepreneurs from the developing world can act also as suppliers and producers of sustainable products and services (Agnihotri, 2013). Our study contributes to a growing stream of literature on sustainable entrepreneurship, by answering the research question: what are the forms of innovations crafted by grassroots entrepreneurs in resource-constrained contexts? As noted by Munõz and Dimov (2015, p. 633), there is a need to develop a substantive understanding of sustainable entrepreneurship “that goes beyond an ‘opportunity pursuit’ metaphor and accounts for what it is that sustainable entrepreneurs are trying to do”. Using eight in-depth qualitative case studies from India, we focus on grassroots ecopreneurs to understand the process of value creation within resource-scarce environments. In the broader context of poverty alleviation, scholarly attention has overwhelmingly portrayed the complex role for business often Multinational Corporations (MNCs), neglecting the role of those at the grassroots (Arora and Romijn, 2011; Hall, 2014; Lim et al., 2013; Pansera and Owen, 2015; Sesan et al., 2013). We have designed our research to fill this gap in the literature concerning the importance of grassroots entrepreneurial action towards sustainability, through the actions of grassroots ecopreneurs. The study also provides some reflections on the future of the debate on sustainable entrepreneurship, one that can potentially inspire further research. 2. Theoretical background 2.1. The green transformation of the poor Despite its contested meaning (Castro, 2004), sustainability has become central in the debate of management and entrepreneurship academic communities (Roome, 1992, 2011). Furthermore, recent research has highlighted how sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship underlies a huge range of societal and environmental motivations, values and goals (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011; Shepherd and Patzelt, 2011). Those topics, initially originating within the North, are now becoming increasingly debated in the Global South (Ely et al., 2013; Viswanathan et al., 2011). The processes underlying the spread of the notion of sustainability in the South are complex and often contested. Nevertheless, the old school of framing environmental degradation as a direct consequence of poverty is slowly shifting towards a more complex and nuanced understanding of the nexus between underdevelopment and environmentalism (Duraiappah, 1998; Mabogunje, 2010; Martinez-Alier, 2008). Some hold that preindustrial societies, especially rural and indigenous societies, have proved to be extremely resilient to environmental challenges (Jenkins, 2000), while others argue that environmental awareness only emerges in complex industrialised societies (Soumyananda, 2004; Stern, 2004). Few, however, would deny that the vast majority of humanity living in poorer societies will dramatically influence the future of sustainability. It is therefore crucial to understand the consumption behavior of this vast body of people, their approach to sustainability issues and their innovation capability. Traditionally, the academic community has been inclined to consider sustainability-driven innovation and entrepreneurship as a domain mostly of the developed countries (Kaplinsky, 2011). However, many emerging economics, like Brazil or China, also consider ecological transition as crucial for their future development (Zhang et al., 2010; Zhijun and Nailing, 2007). Furthermore, the innovation potential may be even

bigger in emerging countries, where markets are bigger and less saturated. Surprising ways of using current innovation or out-dated technologies in new ways can be found here. This suggests that increasingly (and especially in a resource constrained world), disruptive innovation in the future could be of a low cost ‘frugal’ nature (Martins Lastres and Cassiolato, 2008). Earlier, it had been suggested that through some forms of disruptive innovations, social-sector problems could be resolved in new ways to create scalable, sustainable, systems-changing solutions (Christensen et al., 2006). The challenge then, is to understand how these changes would occur (or is occurring), and who the protagonists of such changes are. One dimension of this process is whether or not environmental innovativeness by the poor, the grassroots ecopreneurs, could also trigger a change of the business-as-usual paradigm - in the Kuhnian sense (Kuhn, 1962). Undertaken on a global basis, this might provide an alternative development and social change model to the present globalization process and management routines based on principles mainly originated in the North. By beginning to understand eco-innovations at the grassroots level, we first need to identify and understand the conditions that initiate new or alternative paths of innovation in developing countries. In other words, it is necessary to understand whether and how eco-innovation occurs in contexts other than those of western industrialised countries. In the last decade, the dynamics of eco-innovation in the North has been subject of heightened scholarly interest. It is now not only crucial to provide evidence that eco-innovation is taking place (and how) in non-western environments, but also to identify the factors that drive and govern this process.

2.2. Are the poor too poor to eco-innovate? Does innovation occur at the grassroots, and if so, are there sustainability dimensions to these innovations? Since the seminal work of Schumacher (1973) in the 1970s this has been at the centre of the debate about the social role and implications of technology. More recent research has shown that grassroots innovation is a common phenomenon worldwide (Kaplinsky, 2011). This literature can be arguably classified into two broad fields. A first body of study focuses on processes, i.e. how does innovation emerge from resource-constrained settings. This perspective is usually identified with the Lévi-Strauss notion of bricolage, i.e. the capacity to solve problems with ‘what is at hand’ (Baker and Nelson, 2005). The ‘bricoleur’ is adept at multitasking, and unlike an engineer, is not constrained by the availability of raw materials and tools, but instead makes do with whatever material that is readily available (Lévi-Strauss, 1966). In the entrepreneurship literature, bricolage has been used as a framework to analyze entrepreneurship and firm behavior in resource-poor environments (e.g., Baker and Nelson, 2005; Garud and Karnøe, 2003; Senyard et al., 2009). It has also been suggested that “bricolage capabilities may be a largely overlooked opportunity as a managerial tool assisting entrepreneurs of new firms to become more innovative despite whatever resource constraints they might face” (Senyard et al., 2014, p. 227). The fundamental argument is that under conditions of scarcity, the human mind is stimulated to think ‘out of the box’ (Keupp and Gassmann, 2013). Bricolage implies that entrepreneurs and firms find value in inputs that others can view as worthless, a behavior that can be particularly useful when operating under substantial resource constraints (Senyard et al., 2014). The direct consequence of this is a stream of low-cost, effective and resourceefficient solutions hardly achievable under conditions of resource affluence. The emerging theory of bricolage in management studies is a call to revisit firm strategy by re-considering innovation as a complex and interactive social process (Baker et al., 2003). Bricolage innovation, (sometimes termed frugal innovation), has been also suggested as an alternative to mainstream innovation to address the problem of the poor (London and Hart, 2004; Prahalad and Mashelkar, 2010; Prahalad, 2010, 2012). Even more interestingly, the bricolage process in resource-

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constrained environments is thought to be a potential source of ecoinnovations (Brown, 2005; Hart, 2011; Sharma and Iyer, 2012). A second body of thought on grassroots innovation focuses on the normative dimension i.e. motivations and values. In this view, grassroots innovation both in affluent societies and less developed countries, not only differ in its development process in comparison with mainstream innovation, but also in the underpinning values and motivations of those communities in which it emerges (Monaghan, 2009; Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012; Smith et al., 2014). Emphasis on grassroots innovation is usually placed on exercising control over the innovation process. The innovation activity often includes a sense of social justice, community identity, claims over local resources and the desire to promote a degree of social and economic self-determination (Smith and Ely, 2015). In a nutshell, the characteristic feature of the grassroots vis-à-vis mainstream market-driven innovation is a call to open up innovation systems and make them accessible to citizens. From this perspective, the environmental motivation of grassroots innovators is a central element in their values system. This has been observed among grassroots innovators in the North (Seyfang et al., 2013), makers and the DIY users community (Holm, 2015) as well as in the South (Gupta, 2010; Gupta et al., 2003). Along these lines, not only are ‘the poor’ rediscovered as able to eco-innovate, but also as a potential reservoir of scalable and affordable solutions to pressing environmental problems. As a consequence, public institutions are now following with attention grassroots initiates, and in rare occasions encouraging them with financial support like for Brazil and Argentina (Miranda et al., 2011). Recently, eco-friendly grassroots innovations for social inclusion are also on the agendas of international donors such as the World Bank (2012) and the OECD (2012). From this variegated scenario the notion of sustainability-driven innovation and entrepreneurship appears complex, hybrid and often contested (Demeritt et al., 2011; Leach et al., 2012). It is highly probable that transition to greener societies would involve a myriad of different paths, within and across geographical regions and economic sectors (Ely et al., 2013). To be effective the transition must be above all fair and equitable. This raises an important question regarding the process, purpose(s) and goals of eco-innovation in developing countries within the context of the current global economy. Hence the study of grassroots innovators and entrepreneurs, we argue, is highly relevant. If the poor are not too poor to eco-innovate, why and how do they ecoinnovate? What motivates those actors and what are implications for policy making and business strategy? Despite the rising scholarly interest on grassroots innovation and bricolage, we still do not understand much on the implications for sustainability of those phenomena. As Kolk et al. (2013) observed in their extensive review on the literature focused on ‘innovation for the poor’, among the topics of health, food, education or economic development, the environmental aspect receives the least attention. In order to contribute to our understanding of the sustainability potential of grassroots ecopreneurs we undertake eight in-depth qualitative case studies. Our goal is to shed light on the process of sustainable value creation within resource-scarce environments. 3. Method and data In order to unpack the eco-innovations of grassroots entrepreneurs we used an inductive method employing multiple case studies. Inductive methods are useful for establishing generalizability of inferences, and permit richer and more nuanced interpretations of a phenomenon (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Siggelkow, 2007). Inductive lines of enquiry are especially recommended when research deals with “how” types of question, and where the context and experiences of the protagonists are critical (Bonoma, 1985). In particular, we adopted a grounded theory approach, in which theoretical insights emerge from interpretation of qualitative data such as semi-structured interviews, documents and direct observations (Gioia et al., 2012).

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3.1. Cases selection and data Our work is based on primary and secondary data of experiences of grassroots ecopreneurs from India. In particular, we used maximum variation sampling, involving purposefully picking a variety of cases to get a variation on dimensions of interest (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Flyvbjerg, 2006; Yin, 1994). Sampling a variety of grassroots ecopreneurs allowed us to reveal the nature of the eco-innovations, and if common patterns were found, then it would enable elimination of alternative explanations. For the case selection, our starting point was an intense six-month consultation of newspaper articles from India, which referred to ecoinnovations, being carried out by the poor with a social impact. This search took place in May 2014, which along with our literature review, also helped in the development of sensitizing concepts (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), on ecopreneurs, grassroots entrepreneurs and sustainability. Relying also on the work of Lévi-Strauss (1966) on resource constraints, the sensitized concepts of bricolage, empowerment, and sustainability were identified. From the large number of references found (over 350), a number of them referred to grassroots entrepreneurs identified by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) of India, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology of the central Government of India. Most entrepreneurs identified by the NIF are rural or semi-rural, mostly farmers, mechanics and artisans, almost all of who have little or no formal education. Given that the NIF had conducted interviews with these grassroots entrepreneurs, we proceeded to use the NIF database as a secondary data source. We limited our cases to a homogenous group of assembly-type manufacturing innovations, leading us to a total of fifty-two grassroots entrepreneurs. It has been found that a homogenous group enables more valid and relevant research findings (Lee et al., 2013). Following the method adopted by Stinchfield et al. (2013)in their study of bricolage, we selected cases based on their potential to exemplify our sensitizing concepts while simultaneously having the potential to illustrate a variety of behaviors across our samples. Using these sensitized concepts, together with the principle of maximum variation, and coupled with logistical and financial reasons, given the size of India, we narrowed the cases to eight (Table 1). Overall, these eight entrepreneurs were judged to offer sufficient cross-case variance. Since our underlying principle was to select information-rich cases, purposefully to fit the study (Patton, 2005), we also conferred with a senior NIF official regarding our case selection. This person, who is very familiar with the work of all the entrepreneurs, concurred with our final selection. Maximum variation was guided by three objectives: geographical variation, entrepreneurs' occupation and innovation outcome. Thus our search led us to include cases that came from different parts of the country i.e. the north, west and south of India. The choice was moderated by logistical and financial issues, hence the existence of three cases from the western Indian state of Gujarat both due to a higher number of cases from there represented in NIF documents, and also the logistics of the research. The occupations, as well as the innovation outcome, are quite varied, ranging from machines to aid the farmer, to motor powered boats to innovations that empowered the consumer (see Table 1). We used the following data sources: interviews (primary); NIF documents (secondary); media coverage (secondary). Using multiple sources of evidence helped in triangulating the data and improved the accuracy of the thematic analysis. The interviews with the entrepreneurs were carried out in India during January of 2015, using a mix of English and Hindi, with all notes taken down in English. These interviews lasted between one and two hours, and were open-ended. Besides the interviews, one of the authors performed direct observation, accompanying two entrepreneurs as they interacted with clients and the general public. By witnessing and experiencing entrepreneurs' interactions with the community, direct observation and shadowing

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Table 1 Case characterisation. Entrepreneur

State

Occupation

Innovation

R. S. Dahiya (RD) B. Mohanlal (BM) A Muruganantham (AM) Chintakindi Mallesham (CM) Arvindbhai Patel (AP) Mansukhbhai Patel (MP) Mushtaq Ahmed Dar (MD) Mansukhbhai Prajapati (MbP)

Rajasthan Kerala Tamil Nadu Andhra Pradesh Gujarat Gujarat Kashmir Gujarat

Labourer/mechanic Boat mechanic Workshop worker Weaver Mechanic Electrician Walnut trader Potter

Biomass based electricity generator Reversible gearbox for marine diesel engines Mini sanitary napkin making machine Mechanization of making Asu saris Natural air conditioner; water cooler Cotton stripper machine Walnut de-sheller; Electric Pole climber Mitticool (natural refrigerator)

allow scholars to obtain rich insights into the human, social and organizational aspects of business organizations (Czarniawska, 2007). Direct observation was also conducted on all the nine innovations (two innovations were of MD), where the entrepreneur explained how the innovations worked, and we had an opportunity to inspect in detail the mechanisms and actual functioning of the various devices. We supplemented the primary data source with NIF dissemination material, which included a narrative on the entrepreneur and the innovation. These documents varied in length, and are available in the NIF website. Finally, since all these innovations had received press coverage, some of which international, we also examined newspaper and journal articles covering both the innovator and the innovation. In three cases information was gathered from digital visual media (AM, CM, MbP), both YouTube and TV. 3.2. Data analysis Data analysis was carried out in three steps, where we followed the recommendations proposed by Gioia et al. (2012). In the first step, using our interview, observations and documental data, we applied open coding to understand the resource creation process of the grassroots ecopreneurs (Miles and Huberman, 2003). The first-order concepts emerged from informant-centred codes that were based on common statements. When cycling between the data and extant theory did not yield substantial new insights, implying that we had reached a

saturation of first-order codes, we then proceeded to the next step. This second step involved second-order themes where we searched for relationships between and within the initial codes leading to the creation of second order themes. These themes remained faithful to the underlying data, but were more abstract and general. Finally, the themes were grouped in three aggregate dimensions that reflect the three driving dynamics that characterise the innovation processes were observed (Fig. 1): Resource-driven innovation, socially-driven innovation, sustainability-driven innovation. 4. Findings In this section, we present our findings where snippets of the grassroots ecopreneurs story are juxtaposed with the data and the unfolding theory. We employ a combination of illustrative examples and tables describing the data from which we drew our inferences (Miles and Huberman, 2003; Orton, 1997). As proposed by Ravasi and Phillips (2011) and Nag and Gioia (2012), in order to show the relation between the data structure and the underlying data, Table 2 displays the connection between sampled informants' quotes and the 1st-order categories. 4.1. Resource-driven innovation The first theoretical dimension that emerges from the data is resource scarcity as a driver of innovation. In particular the grassroots

Fig. 1. Data structure.

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Table 2 Representative quotes underlying second-order themes.a Second-order themes

First-order categories

Resources constrains

‘For my experiments, I wore a napkin, which I connected to a “uterus” from a football bladder, to which I then made a couple of holes in it, and filled it with goat's blood’ (AM). ‘I used old parts from easily available machines. Tractor tyres were added to provide mobility’ (MP) ‘Initially, I made the design with bricks and planned how it can be made out of iron with an old diesel engine.’ (RD) Reconfigurations of material to give ‘I created a stand in my room, by using my bed. For the circular wheel through which the yarn would it new meaning pass, I used a bicycle rim, which was made to rotate on a sprocket.’ (CM) ‘He worked four years to get the combination right, mixing and churning different types of clay in different proportions… His success came when he found the right combination of sawdust, sand and clay, which made the soil porous and the interiors cold.’ (MbP) Reduction of production costs ‘Using my diesel powered inboard engine system reduces the daily fuel cost by about 60 to 70% by is crucial. shifting from a kerosene run outboard engine system.’ (BM) ‘Considering the cost of the machine, fuel-biomass and local labour, this arrangement is estimated to cost less than half the cost per unit power when compared to normal electricity grids costing 4 Rs per unit.’ (RD) My innovation is designed to increase ‘With my machine, you can diesel 35–40 kg green walnuts per hour, against 5–6 kg if the work productivity. is done manually.’ (MD) ‘With the Asu machine, a sari takes one and half hours, with little supervision. Before it would take four hours of painful labour to make one sari.’ (CM) ‘The gasifier is reported to be 1 kg/kVA, which is claimed to be almost 30–40% less than other available designs’ (RD) Productivity of farmers has gone up. ‘The slow pace of this method (using a stone or a stick to hammer it out) could not even produce 10 kg a day. Now 8 times the yield is obtained.’ (NIF) ‘The machine has lowered the cost of extracting cotton from Rs.1 per kg to Rs. 1 for 20 kg. This has generated good income for farmers and also improving the milling quality.’ (from NIF document on MP's innovation) My innovation allows users to save ‘The refrigerator is very inexpensive when compared to the conventional alternative. No electricity is money. required and there are no maintenance costs.’ (MbP) ‘I have kept the price of the machine as low as possible so that the weavers can benefit from it. Making money from this is not my objective.’ (CM) My technology is easy to learn and ‘Is very simple. I can teach anybody to use it in no time. … It is now much easier for farmers, use. for instance, to draw water for their fields.’ (RD) ‘The machines are kept deliberately simple and skeletal so that they can be maintained by the women themselves. “It looks like the Wright brothers' first flight,” he says.’ (BBC, 2014 reporting on AM's innovation). We want to create millions of jobs. ‘Each machine converts 3000 women to pad usage, and provides employment for 10. They can produce 200–250 pads a day which sell for an average of about 2.5 rupees … each.’ (BBC, 2014 reporting on AM's innovation). ‘We can create 1 million employment opportunities for rural women and expand the model to other developing nations.’ (FastCo Exist citing AM) This technology can be used by small ‘In (the state of) Kerala alone there are 22,000 registered boats in this category. If every boat uses the entrepreneurs. reversible gear box, then each of these boats would save Rs. 2000 per day when switched to this (diesel) system.’ (BM) ‘In India as you know, one thing that is holding us back is poor or often no electric supply, especially in the farms. With the gasifier, farmers can use it to operate pump sets in the fields, pump up water for their homes, and many small entrepreneurs and traders can use it to operate saw or flour mills.’ (RD) ‘He has been able to manufacture and sell over 50 units of varied capacity to farmers and owners of flour and saw mills. (from NIF document on RD's innovation) ‘The Asu machine has saved thousands of women like my mother from the pain of creating a sari. They The innovation can create new now simply need to supervise, and are now involved in other more value added entrepreneurial opportunities work.’ (CM) for women. ‘Asu Machine Centres’ have also been started, which supply Asu to weavers with looms, but who don't have Asu machines, creating new entrepreneurial opportunities for women.’ (CM) ‘Household income in weavers’ families has more than doubled… Now women feel more equal as they are earning much more. ‘Because of liberating time, many of them have started weaving, which before only the men in the family would do.’ (CM) ‘Because of the walnut cracker, now there is little problem with the acid from the walnut damaging This technology has the potential to women's hands as before.’ (MD) improve the life socially excluded groups. ‘Because of my machine, children now have the opportunity to go to school…Women are also now free (from the arduous labour of deshelling).’ (MP) Efficient use of energy ‘Wherever electricity in the fields that can be used that can substitute arduous physical work, the biomass electricity generator is very useful. Is also being used to generate electricity in workshops and there have been orders from some schools and universities in India, which renders healthier learning conditions.’ (RD) ‘The refrigerator doesn't use electricity at all, and can keep food fresh for many days.’ (MbP) ‘Little external power source is required for its operation and it has almost no maintenance expenses.’ (AM) Increasing efficiency by adapting ‘The walnut shells can now be used as biomass. The total energy that can be generated is actually more to local conditions than the consumption by the machine.’ (MD) ‘Efficient conversion of bio-mass waste into useful inflammable gas which generates electricity. ‘Any agricultural bio-waste can be used in my machine ­ cotton waste; coconut shells; any agricultural waste; rice husk, mustard waste; bamboo…’(RD) Complains for pollution ‘The exhaust from the current systems in the boats gets injected directly into the water. The carbon monoxide poisoning of the water damages the ecosystem. Many fishermen are already complaining because of lesser catch each year due to the water pollution from the boats.’ (BM)

Cost/efficiency-driven technology

Affordability and user friendliness

Economic development

Empowerment

Eco-efficiency

Environment integrity concerns

Selected evidence

We use whatever material there is at hand.

(continued on next page)

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Table 2 (continued) Second-order themes

First-order categories

Selected evidence

Consumption and pollution

‘Taking into account the polluting material in ACs, this doesn't pollute at all. Plus, there is no electric[ity] consumption’ (AP) ‘The air conditioner doesn't require any electricity, and is almost zero cost to operate.’ (AP) ‘In my diesel system- there is no oil or fuel pushed into the water, the exhaust is pushed in the air. The government can even tax this pollution.’ (BM)

a Because of space limitations, we display only two representative quotes for each first-order category. Additional quotes are available from the authors. Direct quotes are from our field notes, and distinct from the quotes elsewhere in the text.

ecopreneurs revealed that the acute scarcity of resources did not prevent them from, but rather promoted resource driven innovation based on inventing or attributing new functions to everyday objects (Hoegl et al., 2008; Weiss et al., 2011). As mentioned earlier, resourceconstrained innovation has been documented in a vast range of situations both in developing and industrialised countries (Baker and Nelson, 2005; Pansera and Owen, 2015; Pansera, 2013; Ray and Ray, 2010; Sharma and Iyer, 2012; Weiss et al., 2011). The cases analysed resembled the examples reported by the literature in which resource scarcity is overcame by a ‘bricolage attitude’. As we moved iteratively from the case study notes, indeed, documental evidence and then back to the literature, it became evident that one of the innovation from the cases was scarcity-driven, yielding one high level dimension of resource-driven innovation via bricolage (Baker and Nelson, 2005), which emerged as the way the grassroots ecopreneurs surmounted their resource difficulties. The grassroots ecopreneurs in our samples exhibited a consistent capacity to make use of whatever material that he could lay his hand upon, giving them new meaning. R Dahiya (RD), the inventor of the biomass fuelled energy generator, for example exemplifies such resourcefulness, as evidenced from our interview notes: “I then decided to make an engine that would be able to run using the gas from farm waste. I also wanted that the waste should include anything that could burn, including cow dung, which is easily available. But I did not have any raw material to even make a model. Initially, I made the design with bricks and then planned how it can be made out of iron with an old diesel engine.” Mansukhbhai Prajapati (MbP) is a potter and roof tile maker, hailing from the western state of Gujarat in India. Following a massive earthquake in January 2001 in his state, his attention was drawn a photograph in his local newspaper, of a shattered earthen pot traditionally used to cool water in the sweltering summers in India. The caption read, “Poor man's fridge”, and it struck him that indeed it was possible to make actual refrigerators from clay, for the poor. He recalls his idea at that time: “I thought to myself, why couldn't I make a refrigerator out of mud? In the old times in India, terracotta pots used to keep water cool.” Putting his five years of experience as a potter to bear on clay, a material that was abundantly available, MbP created the Mitticool, a natural refrigerator made entirely of clay, which could also be used for cooling water. Given the erratic supply of electricity in his region, his refrigerator was specially designed to work without electricity, yet provide a natural coolness to the stored material and keeping perishable items fresh for four to five days. Water stored in the fridge gets its temperature reduced by almost 10 degrees centigrade, a boon in India's withering summers. Lévi-Strauss (1966,p. 18) had argued that the bricoleur ‘interrogates all the heterogeneous objects of which his treasury is composed to discover what each of them could “signify” and so contribute to the definition of a set which has yet to materialize but which will ultimately differ from the instrumental set only in the internal disposition of its parts.’ Mushtaq Ahmed Dar (MD) hailed from the northern Indian state of Kashmir where walnuts and walnut derivatives were an

important industry, providing livelihood to a substantial portion of the state's population. Many households extracted the walnut kernel from the shell in a way that has largely remained the same over the centuries. The work is done by hand, typically by women and children, often posing great risks of damage to the hands and skin due to the acidity of the green peel of the kernel. MD “interrogated” the available material at his disposal towards creating a machine that would automatize the process of deshelling. Having very limited resources, he had to settle for a sewing machine motor giving it a new meaning, which was applied in the early versions of Dar's design. Similar to what have been observed by Baker and Nelson (2005) in the corporate sector, for the grassroots ecopreneurs, naturally available, household and local material formed the bricoleur's “trove”, from which they crafted their solutions. The bricolage attitude varies very little across the eight cases. All the grassroots entrepreneurs display “making do with what is at hand”, integrating easily available resources in novel ways. Innovation was driven by the need to look for everyday material and attributing new functionalities to them, the grassroots ecopreneurs creating something from nothing. 4.2. Socially-driven innovation A second broader aggregated dimension that emerges from the data is the social commitment shown by grassroots ecopreneurs. This is characteristic that is shared by most of grassroots movements around the world (Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012; Smith et al., 2014). Grassroots innovation aspires to solve problems that are essentially social through a process that is often overtly political or have a clear normative intention to empower the powerless and to question the status quo (Abrol and Gupta, 2014; Fressoli et al., 2014; Seyfang and Smith, 2007). The creation of social goods is usually favoured over the maximization of profit and users/clients are framed in terms of citizens of members of communities rather than mere consumers (Gupta et al., 2003; Papaioannou, 2014). Those principles clearly emerge from the data. The informants, indeed, are always motivated by the urgency to ameliorate the economic condition of their surrounding communities and an aspiration to empower social minorities such as women, children, small groups of workers and the like. For example, Muruganantham (AM) came from a very poor family from the southern Indian city of Coimbatore who ran a welding workshop. His father died young forcing him to leave school, working from very early on in his life. AM dabbled in many things till he opened up a welding workshop. As a newlywed, one day he was appalled to see his wife hiding from him, and when he insisted, he discovered to be rags that she used during menstruation. To his shock he learnt that not just his wife, but also all the women in his and from the surrounding villages did the same. He then bought a sanitary pad for her as a gift, and was astounded to find the high price of what he considered, to consist of nothing more than cotton. He determined then to make a hygienic sanitary pad, and started to create a simple machine that could be used to make cheap and quality sanitary pads. His early experiments involved creating a “uterus” from a football bladder by punching a couple of holes in it, which he then filling with goat's blood. After working on his idea for nearly five years, he created a low-cost machine which most important parts were ideas assembled and recombined from material at hand. Muruganantham's simple machine to make

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cheap sanitary pads provides a striking example of a solution built on the logic of empowerment, which has revolutionized menstrual health for rural women in India. It is estimated that in India, approximately 70% of all reproductive diseases are caused by poor menstrual hygiene with only 12% of women in India using sanitary pads, according to a 2011 survey by AC Nielsen (Venema, 2014). AM's motivation was also to empower women by turning them to be small-scale entrepreneurs, and by deploying a self-sustaining micro-enterprise model. The simple and user-friendly machine is now enabling increasing numbers of women in rural India (and other developing) countries to create jobs and increase family income. The women produce the sanitary pads mostly on a time-sharing basis, selling them directly to the customer, sometimes involving non-monetary transactions (for instance bartering them for vegetables). AM took evident pride in how his machine is empowering not just women, but also girls, who in many parts of rural India would drop out of school on reaching menstrual age. AM was passionate about this: “What this machine is now doing in many parts of rural India is not just liberating women and increasing household income (by making and selling the sanitary pads), but the machine is also empowering girls. No multinational is interested is motivated to do this, and at this price.” The sense of a strong social motivation is also evident from the case of Chintakindi Mallesham (CM), who was born into a traditional weaver's family in a small village of handloom weavers. Just as all the other families in his village, his family had been involved in weaving Pochampalli silk saris for many generations. These are highly sought after saris by Indian women, yet behind its making is a very laborious and time intensive process which goes into the making of the yarn. This process involves weaving the thread back and forth by hand, over a length of one meter up and down, around semi-circularly arranged pegs. A typical Pochampalli involves 9000 such movements, demanding extremely high concentration and precision. With so many movements to make a sari, the weavers of the yarn, almost exclusively by women, takes its toll on the women who end up backaches, elbow and shoulder joint pains, besides over the years ruining their eyes. Each sari takes around 4 to 5 h to make, two saris being a day's work. CM narrated to us how he soon was unable to stand any longer to see his mother suffer: “One day she started crying from the pain, and told me I don't want your wife (future) to go through what I am going through. I determined then that there must be a way to mechanize this process.” After over six years of struggle, CM was able to automate the process of making Asu saris, has freed women from the painful and laborious Asu process, and have started weaving, which used to be an exclusive male preserve. In the process, an ancient tradition has been given new life. ‘Asu Machine Centres’ have also cropped up, which supply CM's machines to weavers with looms, but who don't have these machines, creating new entrepreneurial opportunities for women. The aspiration for empowerment in the informant discourse is directed not just towards women, but also children in the form of reducing child labour, exemplified by Mansukhbhai Patel's cotton stripping machine. MP was a farmer and an electrician from Gujarat, who had always shown keen interest in mechanical and electrical appliances, spending most of his spare time tinkering with gadgets. He lived in an area of this dry state where cotton is a very important agricultural produce, and the livelihood of many farmers depended upon the getting a good crop, which depended upon the vagaries of the weather. Moreover, the type of cotton that grew in the region had lint that remained very tightly attached to the inner of the shell. The tedious, and painful post-harvesting process of removing cotton from the shell by hand used to be done almost exclusively by women and children. During the harvesting season, children would work as day labourers, plucking cotton balls from the field instead of attending schools several.

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Determined to change this situation, MP started working on a cottonstripping machine designed, finally successful in building the Chetak, a fully mechanized and mobile machine in the mid nineteen-nighties. His innovation has not only liberated children to go back to school, and women from a tedious and painful job, but has also significantly cut the cost of cotton farming from Rs one per kg to Rs one per 20 kg. Moreover, the kernels are now used as a renewable energy fuel. Similar, the case of the MD's walnut kernel-extracting machine means no more damage to the hands and skin due to the acidity of the green peel of the kernel, suffered mostly by women and child workers. Another example is the case of Arvindbhai Patel (AP), who was an auto repair mechanic from Gujarat, and for long he wondered why there were no solutions for the poor to beat the often unbearable dry summers. The air conditioners available in the marketplace were not only beyond poor peoples' reach, but the erratic energy supply meant that they were not very dependable and prone to frequent breakdowns. The idea of the water cooler came to Arvindbhai when he was once in bed down with fever. With his wife applying cold packs to his forehead to keep the temperature under control, a method frequently used in India, an idea struck him. Why not use the same principle to create a water cooler, which doesn't not require electricity? During the time of the interview, AP was at pains to explain that while he liked to tinker and create, he was very motivated by the idea that even the poor people can have the advantages of having their homes and schools cooled, at very little cost and no electricity consumption. 4.3. Sustainability-driven innovation A third aggregate dimension reveals the intentions of the informants to deliver eco-friendly solutions usually framed in terms of artefacts that provide either direct environmental benefits, or indirectly from minimal energy consumption. Frugality has already been found as a source of potential eco-friendly solutions in different sectors (Pansera and Owen, 2015; Sharma and Iyer, 2012). Moreover, environmental sustainability is at the centre of grassroots movements that focus on innovation and technology for development – see for example the NIF (Gupta, 2010) and Kerala environmentalist groups (Parameswaran, 2013; Véron, 2001). The environmental motivation strongly emerges from the eight cases analysed in our research. An illustrative case is that of B. Mohanlal (BM), from the southern coastal state of Kerala. On completing his tenth grade, and not liking school, he ran away to his uncle fishing trawler workshop, where he worked for five and half years. He later worked in Mumbai where he worked a year and a half in a spark plug company, and then went to Dubai, one among many South Asian young men who have been heading to the UAE in search of a better livelihood. On coming back to Kerala, he noticed the difficulties of the local fishermen who would use boats equipped with diesel engines or petrol-started kerosene engines. He decided to make a gearbox that would enhance manoeuvrability and at the same time cut operating costs and pollution. After working on the project for approximately ten years, BM was finally successful in building a lightweight reversible gearbox for diesel engines. BM's reversible reduction gearbox and a manual tilt adjusting Z-drive system for small capacity diesel engines, is proving to be boon for fishermen who had been looking to make the switch from costlier, polluting kerosene based boats. His innovation is robust, cheaper than petrol or kerosene alternatives, lighter and has greater manoeuvrability (NIF). Importantly for him were the environmental benefits accrued to Kerala's waters, whose chain of brackish lagoons and the Arabian Sea coastlines are an international tourist destination. Due to kerosene's lower efficiency, the fishermen would carry a large amount of fuel on-board, which besides adding to the weight and reducing manoeuvrability, was also very polluting. The kerosene exhaust would get injected directly into the water, polluting and adversely affecting marine life, also leading to a lower catch. Besides substantially lowering the fuel intake (estimated to be 60–70% less) exhaust from the gearbox-equipped diesel engines are

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projected upwards, and MB even suggested that this could be taxed. It was evident that BM took pride not only in the potential commercial success of his diesel powered boat engine (he already has financial backers and firm orders during the time of the interview), but also of the ecological benefits of his innovation compared to the kerosene and petrol powered ones mostly used in Kerala. “Even for the petrol engines, as with any two stroke engines, they have to add a bit of kerosene, and this oil doesn't get burnt, and stays in the water, which also damages the ecosystem.” The solutions were determined by the context in which the entrepreneurs worked and the user environment. This meant not only was it obligatory for the solutions to be rugged, affordable and user friendly, but also take into account the unreliability at best and absence at worst, of electricity. Thus when possible, the products were designed to use minimal or no electricity. MP's “poor man's refrigerator” was built to not require electricity, as did AP's air conditioner. RD's innovation converted any type of biomass waste typically found in most Indian villages, including cow dung, into useful inflammable gas that generated electricity. Not only was the machine itself non-polluting, but it also resolved a problem of pollution caused by waste. The need to bootstrap and make the maximum use of available materials resulted in environmental gains for our grassroots bricoleurs, an illustration provided by RD, as he was thinking next of how: “Right now about 2% of the biomass that is used as fuel doesn't get burnt, and is a wastage. I am thinking now of how to make use of this as a biofuel.”

5. Discussion 5.1. The triple bottom line of grassroots ecopreneurs Entrepreneurship scholars have been considered to be limited in their explanations of the full range variance that occurs in entrepreneurial value creation (Cohen et al., 2008). The arguments connecting entrepreneurial action to sustainability can be found contained within the discussions on ecopreneurship, that is developing as a new field of research within management and business studies, placing “emphasis on the key role of individuals and organizations in engendering a shift towards more sustainable practices” (Gibbs, 2009, p. 70). Our analysis highlights the sustainability efforts not just by small or medium enterprises, but rather of grassroots ecopreneurs who endeavour to create value across a wide spectrum. Their creations reduce production costs; enhance productivity; aspire to increase household income; are designed to reduce worker pain and or increase comfort and health; and, above all, present the desire to empower users by, and at the same time, leveraging on a discourse of environmental sustainability. In a nutshell, grassroots ecopreneurs seem to pursue a triple bottom line approach i.e. the harmonic combination of economic, social and environmental goals (Cohen et al., 2008; Zahra et al., 2009). On the other hand, from the data collected it emerges that this approach is far from being intentional, but it is rather similar to what was observed by Belz and Binder (2015) i.e. shaped by cultural and local contingencies. In other words, the sustainability and the economic goals appear to spring naturally from the desire of the ecopreneurs to improve the daily life of their communities. In order to give a succinct yet clear image of the triple bottom line approach that characterises the grassroots innovations observed, and following the lead of Baker and Nelson (2005), a matrix summarizing the main features of the cases is presented. Table 3 classifies each case according to whether an innovation revealed a particular influence along one of the nine outcome categories that we extracted from the data. The columns are organized according to the form of benefit

accrued. A “Y” indicates that our field notes and documentary evidence reveal the existence of a particular outcome, an “N” implying otherwise, while a “NA” meant that the particular impact was not applicable. The non-applicability arose since the products could be broadly classified as producer and consumer goods, some of the benefits being particular to each category. Hence productivity increase was not directly applicable to sanitary pads for instance, or to the natural clay refrigerator. Thus in the case of MbP for instance, while there were some social and environmental benefits, the nature of their innovations imply that economic benefits such as increase in household income or productivity increase were not directly applicable (N/A). From looking at Table 3, a clear picture emerges regarding the user and social value of the solutions. The innovations provided value via efficiency and user benefits, as well as along the empowerment and environmental dimensions (except when not applicable). The striking consistency of user and social benefit is revealed by the fact that 63 of the 65 cells registered a “Y” score. The two cases where “N” were recorded was in the case of the biomass based energy producer and the reversible gearbox for marine diesel engines, in the dimension of promoting entrepreneurial opportunities for women. Remarkably, both types of user goods exhibited unanimity with respect to the solutions being affordable, good quality and user friendly; as well as along the two environmental dimensions related with energy consumption and reducing pollution. 5.2. Dynamics and potential of grassroots eco-innovation It has been suggested, that eco-entrepreneurship encompasses a wider field of phenomena than has previously been considered to be a part of the entrepreneurial domain (Cohen et al., 2008, p. 116). Our findings point strongly towards that direction. The cases analysed suggest that grassroots ecopreneurs were motivated by the local context with its problems, resource scarcity, as well as embedded traditional values and knowledge (Fig. 2). They have to deal with harsh conditions of scarcity, degradation, and often institutional voids and market failures (i.e. motivations and contingencies) (Mair and Marti, 2009). The solutions provided are frequently frugal adaptations and reengineering of pre-existing technologies. In some cases, they draw upon traditional or local-specific knowledge (i.e. sources of innovation). When successful, grassroots eco-innovations not only bring economic benefit, but also social improvement and community empowerment in the form of value-driven innovation (Pansera and Owen, 2015). Grassroots solutions often have the potential to scale up to the next village, region or even countries. Given that the solutions are rooted in the realities of the resource and development context of the South, these initiatives can have a potential disruptive impact on a global basis triggering a process of South-South and South-North transfer (Pansera and Owen, 2013). A case in point is that of the sanitary napkin machines. While each of our cases demonstrated presence at a national level, in the case of AM, his sanitary napkin machines are now being demanded from other developing countries as well, including not only other South and South East Asian countries, but also from Africa and Brazil. The aspirations of grassroots ecopreneurs to generate value-driven (or normative) innovations focused on users-pain represent a trigger in the process of democratization of the eco-innovation process. Moreover, successful ecopreneurs could be potentially incentivized to invade new contexts by being more involved in global values chains (Pietrobelli and Rabellotti, 2011) and by creating niches for ecoinnovations to scale up both in industrialised and developing countries (Smith, Vo, & Grin, 2011; Smith, 2007). The case of blowback innovation (or reverse innovation) in General Electric (GE), for example, proves how frugal innovation can scale from emerging countries up to the North (Govindarajan and Trimble, 2012). The idea of blowback innovation is recent (Brown, 2005), its formulation hampered by the assumption that emerging countries would evolve like developed countries did

Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N/A N/A Y Y Y Y Y N/A N/A Y Y Y N/A Y Y N/A Y Y N/A Y Y N/A

Y Y N/A

Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N/A N/A Y Y N/A N N Y Y N/A Y Y Y Y Y N/A N/A Y N/A Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N/A N/A Y N/A Y Y Y Y N/A Y Y N/A Y Y

MP MD MbP

Low (or non) polluting Lower (or no) energy consumption Affordable, good quality and user friendly Reducing arduous labour and pain Productivity increase Reduction of production cost

Y Y N/A Y N/A

Biomass based gasifier Reversible gearbox for marine diesel engine Sanitary napkin making machine Mechanized Asu Natural air conditioner; water cooler Cotton stripper Walnut desheller; pole climber Mitticool – non electric fridge RD BM AM CM AP

Table 3 Summary of case studies features.

Economic benefits

Increased household income

Social benefits

Provide user comfort

Increased safety, health

Entrepreneurial opportunities for rural women

Empowerment of women; reduction of child labour

Environmental benefits

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in the past (Govindarajan and Trimble, 2012). Sustainability problems are especially urgent for highly populated countries like China and India. Hence they are likely to tackle many environmental issues years or even decades before the developed world (Immelt et al., 2009), and in potentially different ways. The emergence of hybrid narratives in the management literature (i.e. grassroots ecopreneurs mixed with business-as-usual (Pansera and Owen, 2015)), has important implications in terms of business strategy formulation as well as creating room for further discussion and debate. First, the phenomenon highlights the need for both researchers and policy makers to take seriously the co-existence of innovation framings from both the developed and developing world (Escobar, 2012), which are united by the linked challenges of resource constrains, resource insecurity and environmental sustainability. In this hybridisation, we suggest a multi-universe of innovation framings and models, which cohabit and interact with various formulations of narratives of top down, market based innovation and grassroots innovation. These hybrids are not always overtly in tension or in contradiction with the dominant business model narratives but continuously absorb and rearrange through a process of cultural bricolage. Such dynamics have been nicely depicted by E. Ostrom, who describes the emergence of polycentric arrangements in the use of common resources (Ostrom, 1990, 2010). This view challenges approaches to innovation that privilege either the boosting of formal R&D programs, capital investments, and entrepreneurship, or of pure grassroots, low scale and appropriate technologies initiatives. Both may be insufficient to face a multipolar and unstable global society facing a future of resource constraints and insecurity, and suggests innovation policy could productively focus on the emergence of new locally oriented hybrid narratives in the face of resource scarcity as an emerging global paradigm. In particular, further understanding of conditions under which hybrid narratives emerge and how to integrate such hybrids in the process of policy making may offer new avenues for innovation policy discussions. While it has been argued that “ecopreneurs could therefore be seen as one set of actors occupying environmentally sustainable niches that offer lessons for policy-makers in any transition to ecological modernization” (Gibbs, 2009, p. 68), our findings call attention to the grassroots efforts towards this end. There is therefore a corresponding need for policy makers to first become aware of these movements, and then develop supportive instruments. Second, firms from both developed and developing countries are realising that emerging countries are a huge reservoir of frugal solutions that can be absorbed and adapted to the North (Radjou et al., 2012; Ramachandran et al., 2012). The triple bottom line approach of grassroots entrepreneurs can serve as an inspiration for these established companies, to guide their business strategy. The idea of ‘letting southern subsidiaries innovate in a frugal way’ represents a completely different paradigm compared to the classical outsourcing mechanism, which dominates the globalization discourse today. The diffusion of such a paradigm would imply a major transformation in the way we look at the globalization process and how societies can change for the better. 5.3. Limitations of our research Our research is limited in scope: while the grounded theory approach proved to be crucial in grasping the richness of discourse and practices of grassroots ecopreneurs, the limited duration of data collection prevented us from developing a more longitudinal and profound view. Moreover, our data is fundamentally based on the informants' narrative, field inspections and secondary sources, but we didn't have data on actual environmental benefits. This means that a clear distinction between the informants' claims and the real economic, social and environmental impacts of their innovations is problematic, as is usual in such cases. Yet we consider that this kind of assessment as crucial to formulate stronger and more robust statements about the real potential of grassroots entrepreneurship in terms of socio-economic development and sustainability goals. Finally, we exclusively focused

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Fig. 2. Implications of grassroots ecopreneurs. (adapted from Pansera and Owen, 2013)

on successful cases. Future research should include also failure cases to understand under what conditions grassroots ecopreneurs succeed, and if the innovation processes were different between the successful and unsuccessful cohorts. Future work could use other types of quantitative analysis, such as Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). This sort of analysis could be done ideally by enlarging the sample of ecopreneurs, and employing the transcript data along with the documental data from NIF. 6. Conclusions There have been calls for the entrepreneurship community to look beyond economic and financial performance, and we find grassroots ecopreneurs to be doing precisely that. Our research suggests that they are strongly motivated to address social problems in their community, devising ingenious solutions that might have, at least in the intent of the informants, a tremendous impact in their communities. While they are not as heralded as other entrepreneurs, grassroots ecopreneurs can potentially create social value along multiple dimensions. We find a number of distinct themes of social value creation, ranging from productivity enhancement, empowerment of women and children, reduction of drudgery in labour, creation of entrepreneurial opportunities, to promoting sustainability. What is remarkable is the striking homogeneity of the grassroots ventures on the impact on all these dimensions. A double bottom line has often been employed to describe an organization's performance with regards to its financial bottom-line as well as social relevance. The triple bottom line adds environmental concerns to these two dimensions. Our research uncovers that while grassroots ecopreneurs are arguably market-driven, and hence inherently driven by concerns of financial sustainability, they also aspire to solve social problems. Indeed, this is the hallmark of the grassroots ecopreneurs that of efficiency and user benefits, empowerment, and environmental sustainability. Finally, our findings disclose an intriguing new perspective on the future of sustainability. We argue for a diverse, pluralistic, contested and variegated way of framing sustainability when compared to the mainstream discourse of ‘sustainable development’. Scoones et al. (2015) held that business-as-usual paradigm is changing towards a green transformation driven by world business elites. However, we also believe that this will not go uncontested. This process, if we look carefully, is accompanied by a multiple, anarchic and messier exploration of everyday sustainability solutions, driven often at the grassroots level. It is probably too ambitious to think that grassroots ecopreneurs would lead a global sustainable transition, yet it is important to at the very least consider their actual and potential contribution. Acknowledgements Soumodip Sarkar gratefully acknowledges financial support received from the Portuguese Science Foundation-FCT and FEDER/

COMPETE (grants PEst-C/EGE/UI4007/2013 and SFRH/BSAB/114365/ 2016). Mario Pansera thanks the financial support of Marie Skłodowska-Curie People Action programme of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. We are also very grateful for the very helpful comments and suggestions from Jean-François Hennart, as well feedback received from the Modern Asia seminar participants of the Asia Center at Harvard University, and the Department of Management Studies of Aalto University. We also thank three anonymous reviewers of this journal, for their comments on a previous version of this paper.

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Zhijun, F., Nailing, Y., 2007. Putting a circular economy into practice in China. Sustain. Sci. 2 (1), 95–101. Soumodip Sarkar is a professor at the Department of Management, University of Evora, Portugal, researcher at CEFAGE-UE. He is currently also an Associate of the Asia Center at Harvard University. He received his PhD in Economics from Northeastern University, Boston in 1995. He previously worked with the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) and later CID, Kennedy School, Harvard University. He was previously the Dean of Doctoral School (IIFA), of the University of Évora (2010–2014), where he is also the coordinator of the Program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His research interests are innovation, resource constrained entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and sustainability. Mario Pansera is a Postdoctoral Skłodowska-curie Research Fellow at the Academy of Business in Society and Research Fellow at Exeter University Business School. A PhD scholar from the University of Exeter Business School, his work is focused on the discourses of innovation and development with a particular interest for emerging and developing countries. A graduate of University Federico II of Naples in Electronic and Telecommunication engineering, at the beginning of his career he worked on the management and prevention of natural disasters in Developing Countries through remote sensing instruments and as telecommunication consultant. Most recently he came back to academia working as project Manager of R&D projects funded by European Commission at Polytechnic University of Madrid. He earned a Master's Degree in “Economics and Management of Innovation” at the Polytechnic of Madrid in collaboration with Autonomous University of Madrid and Complutense University in 2009. His primary research interest is the dynamic of innovation in emerging economies, appropriate technologies and grassroots and social innovations.