Short answer
Before introducing new services to BOP communities, thoroughly research and understand their existing resource landscape and how they make decisions based on it. Tailor your innovation and communication to align with or enhance these existing resource integration patterns.
- Field
- Innovation & Design
- Source
- Journal of Services Marketing (2021)
- Method
- Qualitative research
- Sample
- 29 households
- Evidence
- Moderate effect
BOP actors may reject service innovations without evaluation due to how they perceive and integrate available resources, a phenomenon termed 'resourceness'. This innovation & design research insight is drawn from a 2021 study published in Journal of Services Marketing. Using Qualitative research with 29 households, researchers explored how this design variable affects real-world outcomes. The key design takeaway: Before introducing new services to BOP communities, thoroughly research and understand their existing resource landscape and how they make decisions based on it. Tailor your innovation and communication to align with or enhance these existing resource integration patterns.
Understanding 'Resourceness' to Overcome Passive Innovation Resistance at the Base of the Pyramid
BOP actors may reject service innovations without evaluation due to how they perceive and integrate available resources, a phenomenon termed 'resourceness'.
Journal of Services Marketing · 2021
Key Findings
- 01Economic, social, and contextual factors in BOP settings significantly influence how resources are integrated.
- 02These non-random patterns of resource integration are correlated with passive innovation resistance, where innovations are ignored or misunderstood before evaluation.
- 03This resistance poses a risk to the positive impact of service innovations aimed at poverty alleviation.
Application
Design takeaway
Before introducing new services to BOP communities, thoroughly research and understand their existing resource landscape and how they make decisions based on it. Tailor your innovation and communication to align with or enhance these existing resource integration patterns.
How to apply
Conduct ethnographic research in target BOP communities to map out their typical resource use, identify potential barriers to adopting new services based on these patterns, and co-design solutions that leverage or complement existing resourcefulness.
Project actions
- 01When researching user needs, ask not just 'what do they need?' but also 'how do they currently solve this problem with what they have?'
- 02Consider how your design can be integrated into existing resource flows or make existing resources more valuable.
Method & Evidence
Variables
Strengths & Limitations
Strengths
- +Applies a novel theoretical lens ('resourceness') to a critical issue in BOP innovation.
- +Provides practical implications for designing and marketing services in underserved markets.
Limitations
It can be challenging to accurately gauge how users perceive and integrate resources without extensive, long-term observation. Generalizing findings from one BOP context to another requires caution.
Reliability & validity
The qualitative nature of narrative interviews provides rich, in-depth data but may limit generalizability. Triangulation with other data sources or methods could enhance validity. The reliability of interpreting 'resourceness' across different interviewers would need to be addressed.
Think critically
How might the concept of 'resourceness' differ significantly between urban and rural BOP communities, and how would this impact service innovation strategies?
Design Principles
"Innovations must be designed to be perceived as resource-enhancing or resource-compatible within the target user's existing framework of resource appraisal and integration."
For designers and innovators targeting underserved markets, understanding the specific resource appraisal and integration behaviours of BOP communities is crucial. Ignoring these 'resourceness blind spots' can lead to well-intentioned innovations being overlooked, hindering their potential to improve well-being and alleviate poverty.
What This Means for Your Design
When designing for people with very limited money and resources, they might not even try new things because they don't see how they can use what they already have to make the new thing work. Designers need to understand this 'resourcefulness' to make their ideas successful.
How to use in your project
- 1.Use the concept of 'resourceness' to explain why a particular user group might be hesitant to adopt a proposed solution, and how your design addresses this.
- 2.Frame your user research around understanding the resource constraints and opportunities of your target users.
Add to My Project
Quick Cite
Paragraph starter
This design project acknowledges the concept of 'resourceness,' which describes how individuals appraise and integrate available resources. For the target user group, understanding their specific 'resourceness' is critical, as it influences their willingness to adopt new services. By investigating how users currently leverage their economic and social resources, this design aims to overcome potential passive innovation resistance and ensure the proposed solution is perceived as beneficial and integrable within their existing framework.
Source
Journal of Services Marketing
Learning from the resourceness blind spot for service innovation at the base of the pyramid
journal · 2021
View sourceQuestions About This Research
- What does the research say about understanding 'resourceness' to overcome passive innovation resistance at the base of the pyramid?
- Before introducing new services to BOP communities, thoroughly research and understand their existing resource landscape and how they make decisions based on it. Tailor your innovation and communication to align with or enhance these existing resource integration patterns. Evidence: Journal of Services Marketing (2021).
- Why does "Understanding 'Resourceness' to Overcome Passive Innovation Resistance at the Base of the Pyramid" matter for design?
- For designers and innovators targeting underserved markets, understanding the specific resource appraisal and integration behaviours of BOP communities is crucial. Ignoring these 'resourceness blind spots' can lead to well-intentioned innovations being overlooked, hindering their potential to improve well-being and alleviate poverty.
- How can designers apply this research?
- Before introducing new services to BOP communities, thoroughly research and understand their existing resource landscape and how they make decisions based on it. Tailor your innovation and communication to align with or enhance these existing resource integration patterns.
- What were the main findings?
- Economic, social, and contextual factors in BOP settings significantly influence how resources are integrated.. These non-random patterns of resource integration are correlated with passive innovation resistance, where innovations are ignored or misunderstood before evaluation.. This resistance poses a risk to the positive impact of service innovations aimed at poverty alleviation.
- What research method was used?
- Qualitative research with 29 households.
- How strong is the evidence?
- Evidence strength is rated Moderate effect, based on a 2021 journal from Journal of Services Marketing.
- What should I do differently in my next project?
- Conduct ethnographic research in target BOP communities to map out their typical resource use, identify potential barriers to adopting new services based on these patterns, and co-design solutions that leverage or complement existing resourcefulness.
- What are the limitations?
- The study is context-specific to Zambia and may not generalize to all BOP settings. The focus is on 'passive' resistance, and 'active' resistance is not explored.