Email: h.sultana@qmul.ac.uk
Networking in Frugal Innovation: Female and Male Social Entrepreneurs in an Emerging Economy.
This project aims to explain how social entrepreneurs, who are also involved in frugal innovation, create and expand their networks to acquire necessary resources during the different innovation stages in the context of Bangladesh, an emerging South Asian economy. Because of their resource-constrained nature, social entrepreneurs rely more on networking than their traditional counterparts. However, female social entrepreneurs face the additional sociocultural barriers of time poverty and lack of social legitimacy. Only a few studies in frugal innovation literature have incorporated a process perspective (i.e., how the innovation is developed and diffused). Even fewer have investigated female innovators’ experiences despite their existence. Although female entrepreneurship research sheds significant light on female entrepreneurs’ networks, the studies are based on profit-oriented or necessity-driven entrepreneurs, leaving out implications for social entrepreneurs driven by social and opportunity motives.
With a qualitative research design, a group of female and male social entrepreneurs and significant people in their support network will be interviewed. Focus group discussions will be conducted with support organizations (i.e., incubators, accelerators and investors). Secondary data from corporate websites, LinkedIn pages, and organization reports will be collected to contextualize primary data. The data will be analyzed using thematic analysis and cross-case synthesis. Bangladesh has a young, vibrant startup ecosystem. However, resources like finance, technology and business support services are limited, and market-supporting institutions like policy, capital market and legal framework are weak. Despite (and because of) these challenges, a significant number of social enterprises are formed every year. Almost half of the ventures are founded or co-founded by women.
This project intends to offer insights into the process perspective of frugal innovation. Second, it will advance the research stream analyzing women in social entrepreneurship and frugal innovation. Highlighting the underlying mechanisms and challenges to social entrepreneurship, specifically female social entrepreneurship, the project will contribute to developing a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem, an increasingly important agenda for entrepreneurs, support organizations and policymakers.
I am passionate about exploring and sharing ideas about social innovation practices. I studied MBA with a marketing major. After working in the supply chain sector for a few years, I realized that the part of my job I enjoyed the most was market research. Working part-time as a research and teaching assistant has also inspired me to join academia. I work as a research and teaching associate. I co-taught Consumer, Market and Industry Research at University College London. My involvement in research has been more profound. My research interest broadly covers Social Entrepreneurship, Sustainability and Strategic Marketing, with a focus on emerging economies. I have completed a Master's in Research (MRes) with distinction from Queen Mary. I am co-authoring a book chapter about frugal innovation with one of my supervisors. As a social scientist, I want to be involved in research that has social and/or environmental impacts.