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In every industry there are resources. Some are moving, others more fixed; some are technical, others social. People working with the resources, for example, as buyers or sellers, or users or producers, may not make much notice of them. A product sells. A facility functions. The business relationship in which we make our money has “always” been there. However, some times this picture of order is disturbed. A user having purchased a product for decades may “suddenly” say to the producer that s/he does not appreciate the product. And a producer having received an order of a product that s/he thought was well known, may find it impossible to sell it. Such disturbances may be ignored. Or they can be used as a platform for development. In this study we investigate the latter option, theoretically and through real world data. Concerning theory we draw on the industrial network approach. We see industrial actors as part of (industrial) networks. In their activities actors use and produce resources. Moreover, the actors interact − bilaterally and multilaterally. This leads to development of resources and networks. Through “thick” descriptions of two cases we illustrate and try to understand the interactive character of resource development and how actors do business on features of resources. The cases are about a certain type of resource, a product − goat milk. The main message to industrial actors is that they should pay attention to that products can be co-created. Successful co-creation of products, moreover, may require development also of business relationships and their connections (“networking”).

In the past years, many contributions have been published addressing frugal innovation and other types of resource-constrained innovations in the management field. Throughout this paper frugal innovation is reported as a phenomenon, concept, research field and strategy, showing the different ways the literature refers to it and how scattered the concept is. However, based on the understanding, the authors decided to address frugal innovation as a kind of innovation strategy that helps companies to innovate in resource-constrained environments. Therefore, considering the increasing interest in the frugal innovation topic and adding the perspective of business strategy for resource-constrained conditions, the research question addressed in this paper is: what are the main features of the frugal innovation literature that unfold its current perspectives for business strategy? In this sense, the purpose of this study is to analyze the scientific production in frugal innovation through a literature mapping and review to better understand it, delimiting different perspectives and creating boundaries to other business strategies or approaches.

The authors performed a co-citation analysis using the Vosviewer software to notice how authors are arranged in clusters based on their understanding of the topic. Furthermore, the authors also performed a systematic literature review (SLR) analyzing the extant literature on frugal innovation based on the clusters found through the co-citation method. The final sample used in the study included 42 papers published between 2011 and 2019, using the Web of Science platform as a data source.

By means of SLR, the findings of this study provided a more organized view of frugal innovation through the co-citation analysis and the qualitative analysis of the clusters, which were the basis for the parameters established. After the conceptualization of frugal innovation strategy (FIS) and the delimitation of boundaries of FIS, the authors bring the reflections about the contribution to the literature and the practice (managers and society) by showing three assumptions to be tested and confirmed in future studies and a framework to guide companies in search of a FIS.

This study contributes to the discussion on frugal innovation moving a step forward to clarify the research field on this subject providing the main characteristics for researchers and practitioners. The paper has delimited the boundaries of FIS. The assumptions established in the discussion can become hypotheses for empirical studies. In addition, the authors explain why, what is, where and to whom the FIS can be developed and applied. Furthermore, the authors contribute by developing the FIS framework, with four strategic positions based on the boundaries of FIS organized by the complexity technological level. The strategic positions are frugal innovation orientation (FIO), FIO to value shared, FIO to market and FIS.

Disruptive innovation theory has attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners across many areas, resulting in the development of new business models and strategies. Despite the increasing scholarly attention, its definition has not yet been understood, the understanding of the term “disruptive” and the complex nature of this innovation has provoked some misinterpretations, and the meaning remains ambiguous. To address this confusion, this article undertakes a critical review of disruptive innovation in an attempt at providing a solid theoretical grounding.

The review examines the key issues of published articles, identified after conducting a search in the Web of Science scholarly database. The analysis highlights the basic definitions of disruptive innovation, showing its evolution, types and its characteristics. This article also examines the behaviours adopted by the actors associated with disruptive innovation (i.e. incumbents, entrants and customers).

Overall, this article finds that disruptive innovation has its own elements to be identified, requiring an in-depth analysis to avoid confusing with other innovation approaches. The findings suggest that disruptive innovation affects businesses and sectors in varied and complex ways because customers from low-end market and mainstream market appreciate this innovation. Further, its impact on practice is huge and incites further efforts in establishing a stronger theoretical grounding.

Our research contributes on the evolution of this theory, helping to better understand the phenomenon of disruption and can be used for different types of research settings.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the difference between a product strategy and a platform strategy, relying on examples from the history of Apple and Microsoft in personal computers and other devices as well as Sony and Japan Victor Corporation in videocassette recorders.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter begins with a review of how the term “platform” has been used in the management literature and defines an industry-wide platform (as compared to an in-house company product platform) as a foundation technology (or service) that brings multiple parties in a market together for a common purpose. An industry-wide platform can generate powerful network effects between the platform and complementary products and services that make the platform increasingly valuable. Apple, with the Macintosh computer, and Sony with the Betamax VCR as well as other products, such as the Walkman media player, are examples of firms that developed excellent products but followed a product-first strategy and ended up losing in these markets or becoming niche players. They paid relatively little attention to opening up their technology to outside firms and cultivating an ecosystem of partners. Apple changed in the early 2000s with the iPod and iTunes, and then the iPhone and iPad, and has risen from near bankruptcy to become an enormously valuable and profitable platform leader.

Findings – Historical examples suggest that, in a platform market, the winner is not the firm with the best product, but rather the firm with the best platform – that is, the foundation technology or service that is most open to outsiders and which stimulates development of the most compelling complements.

Originality/value – This result extends the literature's understanding of platform strategy.

The paper aims to address two key gaps in the literature of frugal innovation. First, it disambiguates frugal innovations into its types, and into the various levels at which it happens. Second, it builds upon the theoretical foundations of resource-based view, new institutional economics, economics of location, and institutional theory to offer testable propositions on determinants of frugal innovations.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors first systematically reviewed the extant literature on frugal innovation and related domains and categorized the existing understanding on the domain into various typologies of frugal innovation. The authors then justified why certain key theoretical lenses are tenable to understand the determinants of frugal innovation and then examined the conditions that enable such innovations.

The paper has three key findings. First, frugal innovation comprises of a frugal mindset, a frugal process and a frugal outcome, which may be practiced distinctly. Second, frugal innovators are of three types: grassroots-level, domestic-enterprise level, and MNC-subsidiary level. Each has their distinctive incentives and styles of frugal innovation. Third, a frugal mindset is encouraged by a resource-scarce environments, weaker institutional intermediaries, and a higher tolerance for uncertainty. Frugal processes are espoused by poor property rights regime and a critical size of lead market; and frugal outcomes are influenced by the network-position of innovators, and the presence of critical lead-markets.

The propositions are though testable, but proxies need to be developed to measure the variables, such as a frugal mindset, and a frugal process. Further, the current view on various types and levels of frugal innovation is that of mutual exclusivity, whereas this may not always be the case. Hence, it might be useful to identify contingencies in which these distinctions fade away.

The paper is valuable in two key aspects. First, it offers a much-needed theoretical underpinning to the phenomenon of frugal innovation, such that the phenomenon could be better understood and influenced. Second, it nuances the phenomenon by identifying distinct types of frugal innovators in terms of their motivation, institutional influences, and styles of innovation.

Gillette’s historically successful “razor and blade” business model (RBM) has been a promising benchmark for multiple businesses across diverse industries worldwide in the past several decades. The extant literature deals with very few nuances of this business model notwithstanding the fact that there are several variants of this business model being put to practical use by firms in diverse industries in grossly metaphorically equivalent situations.

This study adopts the 2 × 2 truth table framework from the domains of mathematical logic and combinatorics in fleshing out all possible (four logical possibilities) variants of the razor and blade business model for further analysis. This application presents four mutually exclusive yet collectively exhaustive possibilities on any chosen dimension. Two major dimensions (viz., provision of subsidy and intra- or extra-firm involvement in the making of razors or blades or both) form part of the discussion in this paper. In addition, this study synthesizes and streamlines entrepreneurial wisdom from multiple intra-industry and inter-industry benchmarks in terms of real-time firms explicitly or implicitly adopting several variants of the RBM that suit their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of evolution in situations that are grossly reflective of the metaphorically equivalent scenario of razor and recurrent blades. Inductive method of research is carried out with real-time cases from diverse industries with a pivotally common pattern of razor and blade model in some form or the other.

Several new variants of the razor and blade model (much beyond what the extant literature explicitly projects) have been discovered from the multiple metaphorically equivalent cases of RBM across industries. All of these expand the portfolio of options that relevant entrepreneurial firms can explore and exploit the best possible option chosen from them, given their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of growth.

This study has enriched the literature by presenting and analyzing a more inclusive or perhaps comprehensive palette of explicit choices in the form of several variants of the RBM for the relevant entrepreneurial firms to choose from. Future research can undertake the task of comparing these variants of RBM with those of upcoming servitization business models such as guaranteed availability, subscription and performance-based contracting and exploring the prospects of diverse combinations.

Smart entrepreneurial firms identify and adopt inspiring benchmarks (like razor and blade model whenever appropriate) duly tweaked and blended into a gestalt benchmark for optimal profits and attractive market shares. They target diverse market segments for tied-goods with different variants or combinations of the relevant benchmarks in the form of variegated customer value propositions (CVPs) that have unique and enticing appeal to the respective market segments.

Value-sensitive customers on the rise globally choose the option that best suits them from among multiple alternatives offered by competing firms in the market. As long as the ratio of utility to price of such an offer is among the highest, even a no-frills CVP may be most appealing to one market segment while a plush CVP may be tempting to yet another market segment simultaneously. While professional business firms embrace resource leverage practices consciously, amateur customers do so subconsciously. Each party subliminally desires to have the maximum bang-to-buck ratio as the optimal return on investment, given their priorities ceteris paribus.

Prior studies on the RBM have explicitly captured only a few variants of the razor and blade model. This study is perhaps the first of its kind that ferrets out many other variants (more than ten) of the razor and blade model with due simplification and exemplification, justification and demystification.

This article brings a new, broad conceptual framework to the quest for understanding dynamic capability in organizations (i.e., “managing on the edge of chaos”). This approach rests on two major ideas: (i) a duality–paradox perspective and (ii) new typologies of organizational learning (OL) and individual action/thinking. A case of radical innovation at Microsoft provides a multilevel stimulus. Understanding it requires a focus on two dualistic challenges. For use in future ODC research and practical assessment, this broad new conceptual framework includes: (i) collaboration as a central concept; (ii) duality–paradox as a key source of conflicts that can threaten collaboration; (iii) five types of OL, (iv) four types of individual action/thinking, including paradoxical thinking, and (v) the proposition that “golden dualities” can be created from once-troubling duality situations (where critical collaboration was in danger) which have been transformed from the metaphorical “odd (contentious) couple” into a “productive (collaborative) partnership.”

In an environment that is hyper-dynamic and faced with economic turmoil, it is crucial that organizations identify innovative competitive strategy. Using principles from Clayton Christensen ' s The Innovator ' s Dilemma, KVH Industries embarked upon a strategic market planning mission. This paper aims to describe how this company successfully turned a competitive disadvantage to an advantage by examining the market mindset and utilizing disruptive innovation to introduce a new product.

This paper utilizes a case study to demonstrate successful application of disruptive innovation.

A new evolutionary product was indicated in the research.

There may be some lack of generalizability due to this being a case study for a specific brand in a specific industry.

It is unclear whether a revolutionary, rather than an evolutionary, product introduction would be more successful. Practitioners should recognize the competitive opportunities afforded through “disruptive innovation” strategies.

This paper is of value to practitioners to see the success of one company ' s dismissal of a revolutionary product introduction in favor of a product launch that represents a “just good enough” alternative to competitors ' products. It also demonstrates that there are risks associated with using a brand extension approach rather than individual branding.