Resource mobilization for frugal innovation to address grand challenges: social embeddedness and non-market logics perspectives

AbstractThis study examines how frugal entrepreneurs in the Global South mobilize resources through social embeddedness and non-market logics to address grand challenges. Drawing on multiple case studies, we integrate the constructs of social embeddedness and non-market logics to explain how entrepreneurs access, combine, and deploy resources through community ties, trust, and shared values. The findings reveal that resource mobilization in frugal innovation extends beyond market rationality and is shaped by relational norms of reciprocity, solidarity, and collective benefit. Socially embedded networks provide legitimacy and enable the co-creation of affordable, contextually appropriate solutions that contribute to inclusive development. By theorizing resource mobilization as a socially and institutionally grounded process, this study advances the understanding of entrepreneurship in the Global South and demonstrates how frugal innovation transforms local resourcefulness into collective responses to grand societal challenges.