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aspects along the innovation process in a four year
collaboration. FI theory provides an increasingly thorough
understanding of the methodology to be applied to develop
FIs, which provides good practical guidance. However, in this
project long standing business assumptions of senior
management in the company are challenged and result in lack
of support. This mindset issue seems critical in practice, yet is
mainly unexplored by previous studies in the FI literature.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
As encountered in the project and discussed in
previous studies (Ramdorai & Herstatt, 2015),
support from senior management is crucial for
the success of FI projects. However, the cognitive
antecedents for that support have not been
systematically explored. Here, mindset theory
offers a promising theoretical perspective.
Psychology literature proposes that different
mindsets are required in different types of
human behavior (Gollwitzer, 1990). Initial
decision making tasks prime a deliberative
mindset, which is focused on the assessment of
agoal’s feasibility and desirability. In this case,
the goal is the development of FIs. Actual action
then requires an implemental mindset, which is
focused on where, when and how to act to
promote the chosen goal. Given the crucial role
of senior management, it is particularly
interesting to study the underlying processes of
desirability and feasibility assessment, which
then result in the perception of viable business
opportunities. This has been operationalized in
the field of entrepreneurial opportunity
recognition (Kautonen, Van Gelderen, &
Tornikoski, 2013) by apllying Ajzen’s (1990)
Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB).
The Question of a Frugal Mindset –
Managers’ Perspectives on Frugal Innovation
Malte Krohn
Institute for Technology and Innovation Management
Hamburg University of Technology
Am Schwarzenberg-Campus 4, 21073 Hamburg, Germany
malte.david.krohn@tuhh.de
www.tuhh.de/tim
Dissertation project
Malte Krohn, M.Sc.
FRAMEWORK & METHODOLOGY
The TPB is applied in the field of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition
to decompose the assessment of desirability and feasibility of possible
future goals (i.e. founding a start-up) into three aspects (Krueger, 2007).
Namely, perceived advantages and disadvantages of performing a
behavior directed at the goal (attitude), perceived relevant social norms
and the degree to which an individual perceives to have control over
the behavior are systematically inquired to understand how behavioral
intentions are formed. A study that takes the perspective of individual
perception of FI would have great explanatory power to understand why
senior managers might not recognize the opportunities provided by
developing FIs and a resulting lack of support for such initiatives. Thus,
further steps will include qualitative as well as quantitative investigation
of attitudes, underlying beliefs and behaviors that indicate the existence
or lack of such a deliberative frugal mindset.
Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1990)
FIRST RESULTS
A first literature review and subsequent conceptual work allowed to decompose the frugal
mindset phenomenon into the distinct aspects of deliberation (and thus decision making) and
implementation. This is an important step for operationalizing and empirically investigating it.By
focusing on adeliberative frugal mindset we can now systematically assess how aspects like self-
cannibalization, lower profit margins of FIs and a potential high-tech orientation of Western
engineers might impact the decision making processes of senior managers towards FI.
BACKGROUND
Frugal innovation (FI) originated in the context of emerging economies but recently gained more interest from scholars and
practitioners in Western countries as a strategy to enter fast growing market segments (Tiwari & Kalogerakis, 2016). One such
effort to develop FIs by a German company is supported by the Center for Frugal Innovation at the TIM institute. Building on the
methodology of Weyrauch (2018), this dissertation is embedded in the respective action research project, which covers all
Source: https://www.womensenterprise.ca/event/mindset-mastery-2-0/
Attitude Towards
Behavior
Perceived Social
Norms
Perceived
Behavioral Control
Intention Behavior
(Support FI)