TY - JOUR

T1 - Jugaad as Systemic Risk and Disruptive Innovation in India

AU - Birtchnell, Thomas

N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Contemporary South Asia, 19 (4), 2011, © Informa Plc

PY - 2011/12/15

Y1 - 2011/12/15

N2 - Jugaad is the latest/trend in management and business reports of India’sawakening. The term refers to the widespread practice in rural India of juryriggingand customizing vehicles using only available resources and know-how.While the practice is often accompanied by indigence and corruption intraditional interpretations, the notion of jugaad has excited many commentatorson India’s emergence into the global economy in its promise of an inimitableIndian work ethic that defies traditional associations of otherworldliness andindolence – widely reported as inherent in India’s society and culture. Jugaad hasbeen identified across India’s economy in the inventiveness of call-centre workers, the creativity of global transnational elites, and in the innovativeness of Indian product designs. The term has seen an unprecedented growth in popularity and is now proffered as a tool for development and a robust solution to global recession. Jugaad is now part of a wider method for working within resource constraints as ‘Indovation’. In this context, the trope is presented as an asset that India can nurture and export. This article argues that far from being an example of ‘disruptive innovation’, jugaad in practice is in fact part and parcel of India’s systemic risk and should not be separated from this framing. Viewed from this optic, jugaad impacts on society in negative and undesirable ways. Jugaad is aproduct of widespread poverty and underpins path dependencies stemming fromdilapidated infrastructure, unsafe transport practices, and resource constraints.These factors make it wholly unsuitable both as a development tool and as abusiness asset. The article questions the intentions behind jugaad’s wider usageand adoption and explores the underlying chauvinism at work in the term’s linksto India’s future hegemonic potential.

AB - Jugaad is the latest/trend in management and business reports of India’sawakening. The term refers to the widespread practice in rural India of juryriggingand customizing vehicles using only available resources and know-how.While the practice is often accompanied by indigence and corruption intraditional interpretations, the notion of jugaad has excited many commentatorson India’s emergence into the global economy in its promise of an inimitableIndian work ethic that defies traditional associations of otherworldliness andindolence – widely reported as inherent in India’s society and culture. Jugaad hasbeen identified across India’s economy in the inventiveness of call-centre workers, the creativity of global transnational elites, and in the innovativeness of Indian product designs. The term has seen an unprecedented growth in popularity and is now proffered as a tool for development and a robust solution to global recession. Jugaad is now part of a wider method for working within resource constraints as ‘Indovation’. In this context, the trope is presented as an asset that India can nurture and export. This article argues that far from being an example of ‘disruptive innovation’, jugaad in practice is in fact part and parcel of India’s systemic risk and should not be separated from this framing. Viewed from this optic, jugaad impacts on society in negative and undesirable ways. Jugaad is aproduct of widespread poverty and underpins path dependencies stemming fromdilapidated infrastructure, unsafe transport practices, and resource constraints.These factors make it wholly unsuitable both as a development tool and as abusiness asset. The article questions the intentions behind jugaad’s wider usageand adoption and explores the underlying chauvinism at work in the term’s linksto India’s future hegemonic potential.

KW - Jugaad

KW - Indovation

KW - Hindolence

KW - disruptive innovation

KW - Tata Nano

KW - Hindustan Ambassador

KW - transport

KW - Indian business elites

KW - mobilities

KW - risk

KW - Hinduism

KW - India

KW - South Asia

U2 - 10.1080/09584935.2011.569702

DO - 10.1080/09584935.2011.569702

M3 - Journal article

VL - 19

SP - 357

EP - 372

JO - Contemporary South Asia

JF - Contemporary South Asia

SN - 0958-4935

IS - 4

ER -