Intermediate Users as a Source of Innovation in a Development Context: Empirical Evidence and Theory

This study proposes that individual intermediate users in resource-poor environments represent a source of innovation. The paper first surveys the empirical evidence of user innovation in various developing countries and then examines some cases of user innovation in India. On the basis of the cases examined, the paper proposes an appreciative theory and then a formal model of the innovation process by users in a development context. This process is driven by the unmet, low-cost and functional needs of users, users’ contextual know-how and experience, and users’ knowledge of, and ability to learn from, the local context.