nach oben

Erschienen in:

2020 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

5. Informal Information-Exchange Networks in Rural Low-Tech Clusters

verfasst von : Anant Kamath

Erschienen in: Inclusive Innovation

Verlag: Springer India

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

This chapter is about the role that knowledge exchanges through informal interaction play in innovation and learning in rural low-tech clusters. An empirical illustration based on a coir producing cluster demonstrates the significance of informal technological-information exchanges and the success of defensive strategies. We draw lessons from this and provide suggestions on how the policy discourse must appreciate and be sensitive to the role of informal learning. The findings and observations have implications not only for our conceptual understanding of learning in low-tech environments but also for pointers on technology prescription for rural low-tech clusters, to make innovation and learning a more inclusive process.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Vorheriges Kapitel Inclusion and InnovationInnovation Challenges in Handloom Clusters of AssamAssam

Nächstes Kapitel Commodity Markets, Computers and Inclusive Development: A Study of Marketing and Price Formation of Cardamom with e-Auctions

This is based on a part of my doctoral thesis at UNU-MERIT, which was published as Kamath (2015) and earlier as Kamath (2012). Thanks are due to Robin Cowan and to UNU-MERIT for financial support for fieldwork, as well as to Rajeswari Raina and Keshab Das. For the coir study, thanks are due especially to VR Prasad, Shaji and Paul, without whom rapport with households at Manappuram would have been impossible. Thanks are due to Neethi too.

See Das (2005), Albu (1996), Nadvi and Schmitz (1994), also Bell and Albu (1999).

For a good historical account of the industry, see Rammohan (1999) and Rammohan and Sundaresan (2003).

Though not a contemporary work, Isaac et al. (1992) is a useful reference for a detailed description and a critique of the evolution of technologies for the production of coir fibre and further products.

Two product innovations come at the forefront—pith and geo-textiles. ‘Pith’, a semi-solid black material that exudes while beating the husk, considered hitherto as waste, was now being treated, processed and sold in brick form as a fertiliser. ‘Geo-Textiles’, large matted sheets made from coir rope and yarn, were applied in erosion control, soil conservation and road construction.

Other varieties of yarn, as listed by the Coir Board, include Anjengo, Aratory, Ashtamudi, Alapat, Cavura (generally wheel spun, like Vaicome), Quilandy, Beach and Beypore (generally hand spun). Some, like Vaicome and Alapat, are spun by both hand and wheel.

This brings to mind Storper and Venables (2004) on face-to-face (F2F) contact, who credited F2F as efficient but entailing heavy opportunity costs in spending time in establishing partners—these costs in building relationships and rapport between units were in the Manappuram cluster. Households in this cluster spoke the same socio-economic language, shared conventions and norms, and had personal experience of benefiting from interacting; in other words, proximate in social space as much as in geographical space (Cowan 2004; Malmberg and Maskell 1997).

This provokes the proposition that those units who had longer experience in the traditional technology seemed to adapt to the new technology faster.

Thanks are due to J. Devika for discussions on this point.

A venue that was intended as a formal training session, as a forum for discussion and collective learning on the mechanised ratt, and for providing information on updates in the market was the Coir Board sponsored training session. But the actual experience was not as successful as planned. The Manappuram cluster reported that this exercise had utterly failed due to irregularity in participation payments, and little technological learning.

Albu, M. (1996). Technological learning and innovation in industrial clusters in the south. Electronic working paper 7. UK: University of Sussex.

Allen, R. C. (1983). Collective invention. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 4, 1–24.CrossRef

Allen, T. J., Hyman, D. B., & Pinckney, D. L. (1983). Transferring technology to the small manufacturing firm: A study of technology transfer in three countries. Research Policy, 12(4), 199–211.CrossRef

Bala Subrahmanya, M. H., Mathirajan, M., Balachandra, P., Srinivasan, M. N., & Prasad, L. (2002). R&D and technological institutions in small scale industries. New Delhi: Allied Publishers.

Bala, V., & Goyal, S. (1998). Learning from neighbours. Review of Economic Studies, 65, 595–621.CrossRef

Bell, M., & Albu, M. (1999). Knowledge systems and technological dynamism in industrial clusters in developing countries. World Development, 27(9), 1715–1734.CrossRef

Biggs. (1990). A multiple source of innovation model of agricultural research and technology promotion. World Development, 18(11), 1481–1499.

Braguinsky, S., & Rose, D. C. (2009). Competition, cooperation and the neighboring farmer effect. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 72, 361–376.CrossRef

Breschi, S., & Malerba, F. (2005). Clusters, networks, and innovation: Research results and new directions. In Breschi & Malerba (Eds.), Clusters, networks and innovation. UK: Oxford University Press.

Breschi, S., & Lissoni, F. (2001). Knowledge spillovers and local innovation systems: A critical survey. Industrial and Corporate Change, 10(4), 975–1005.CrossRef

Chamley, C. P. (2004). Rational herds: Economic models of social learning. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Coir Board. (2001). Souvenir. Indian International Coir Fair and Seminar on Coir, October 2001, Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India.

Cowan, R. (2004). Network models of innovation and knowledge diffusion. MERIT-Infonomics Research Memorandum Series. The Netherlands: MERIT, Universiteit Maastricht.

Cowan, R., & Jonard, N. (2003). The dynamics of collective invention. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 52, 513–532.CrossRef

CSES. (2008). Report on the census of coir units and sample survey of coir workers in Kerala. Cochin, India: Centre for Studies in Environmental Sciences (CSES).

Das, K. (Ed.). (2005). Indian industrial clusters. Burlington and Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

Dasgupta, S. (1989). Diffusion of agricultural innovations in village India. Delhi: Wiley Eastern Limited.

Edquist, C. (1997). Systems of innovation approaches—Their emergence and characteristics. In Edquist (Ed.), Systems of innovation: Technologies, institutions and organizations. Pinter, London and Washington.

Ekboir, J. (2012). How to build innovation networks. Thematic Note 2 in Agricultural innovation systems: An investment sourcebook. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Foray, D. (2010). Knowledge policy for development. In Kramer-Mbula and Wamae (Eds.), Innovation and the development agenda. Canada: IRDC, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Foster, A. D., & Rosenzweig, M. R. (2000). Learning by doing and learning from others: Human capital and technical change in agriculture. In Bardhan & Udry (Eds.), Readings in development economics, volume 2: Empirical microeconomics. Cambridge, MA and London, UK: The MIT Press.

Freeman, C., & Soete, L. (1997). The economics of industrial innovation. London and Washington: Pinter.

Gault, F., & von Hippel, E. (2009). The prevalence of user innovation and free innovation transfers: Implications for statistical indicators and innovation policy. MIT Sloan School working paper 4722-09.

GoK. (2009). Kerala economic review 2008. Planning Board, Government of Kerala.

Goyal, S. (2007). Connections: An introduction to the economics of networks. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press.

Griliches, Z. (1957). Hybrid corn: An exploration in the economics of technological change. Econometrica, 25(4), 501–522.CrossRef

Isaac, T. M. T., van Stuijvenberg, P. A., & Nair, K. N. (1992). Modernisation and employment: The coir industry in Kerala. Indo-Dutch Studies on Development Alternatives—10. New Delhi, California, London: Sage Publications.

Jensen, M. B., Johnson, B., Lorenz, E., & Lundvall, B.-Å. (2007). Forms of knowledge and modes of innovation. Research Policy, 36(5), 680–693.CrossRef

Kamath, A. (2012). Enabling inclusive innovation: The role of informal knowledge exchanges through interaction in rural low-tech clusters. Working paper 13/2009. CPR, New Delhi, and IDRC, Canada.

Kamath, A. (2015). Industrial innovation, networks, and economic development in India: Informal information sharing in low-technology clusters. Routledge, London and New York: Routledge Studies in Development Economics.

Kauffman, A., & Tödtling, F. (2003). Innovation patterns of SMEs. In Asheim, Isaksen, Nauwelaers, & Tödtling (Eds.), Regional innovation policy for small-medium enterprises. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Lundvall, B.-Å. (1993). Explaining interfirm cooperation and innovation: Limits of the transaction-cost approach. In Grabher (Ed.), The embedded firm: On the socioeconomics of industrial networks. London and New York: Routledge.

Lüthje, C., Herstatt, C., & von Hippel, E. (2005). User-innovators and “local” information: The case of mountain biking. Research Policy, 34(6), 951–965.CrossRef

Maharajh, R., & Kraemer-Mbula, E. (2010). Innovation strategies in developing countries. In Kramer-Mbula & Wamae (Eds.), Innovation and the development agenda. Canada: IRDC, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Malmberg, A., & Maskell, P. (1997). Towards an explanation of regional specialization and industrial agglomeration. European Planning Studies, 5(1), 25–41.CrossRef

Maskell, P. (2001a). Knowledge creation and diffusion in geographic clusters. International Journal of Innovation Management, 5(2), 213–237.CrossRef

Maskell, P. (2001b). Towards a knowledge-based theory of the geographical cluster. Industrial and Corporate Change, 10(4), 921–943.CrossRef

Nadvi, K., & Schmitz, H. (1994). Industrial clusters in less developed countries: Review of experiences and research memoranda. Discussion Paper 339. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.

Powell, W. W., & Grodal, S. (2005). Networks of innovators. In Fagerberg et al. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation. UK: Oxford University Press.

Rajan, A. C., & Kumar, M. T. B. (2004). Report of the sectoral study on the coir industry. Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation, Government of Kerala.

Rammohan, K. T. (1999). Technological change in Kerala industry: Lessons from coir yarn spinning. Discussion Paper 4. Trivandrum, India: Centre for Development Studies, Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development (KRPLLD).

Rammohan, K. T., & Sundaresan, R. (2003). Socially embedding the commodity chain: An exercise in relation to coir yarn spinning in southern India. World Development, 31(5), 903–923.CrossRef

Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. New York: The Free Press.

Ryan, B., & Gross, N. C. (1943). The diffusion of hybrid seed corn in two Iowa communities. Rural Sociology, 8, 15–24.

Smallbone, D., North, D., & Vickers, I. (2003). The role and characteristics of SMEs in innovation. In Asheim, Isaksen, Nauwelaers, & Tödtling (Eds.), Regional innovation policy for small-medium enterprises. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

SPB. (1973). Report of the study group on mechanisation in the coir industry in Kerala. State Planning Board, Government of Kerala.

Spielman, D. J., Davis, K. E., Negash, M., & Ayele, G. (2008). Rural innovation systems and networks: Findings from a study of Ethiopian smallholders. IFPRI Discussion Paper 00759. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Storper, M., & Venables, A. J. (2004). Buzz: Face-to-face contact and the urban economy. Journal of Economic Geography, 4(4), 351–370.CrossRef

von Hippel, E. (1987). Cooperation between rivals: Informal know-how trading. Research Policy, 16(6), 291–302.CrossRef

von Hippel, E. (1988). The sources of innovation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Cambridge, MA, and London, UK: The MIT Press.

von Hippel, E. (2007). Horizontal innovation networks—By and for users. Industrial and Corporate Change, 16(2), 293–315.CrossRef

White, H. C. (1981). Where do markets come from? American Journal of Sociology, 87, 517–547.CrossRef

Young, H. P. (2009). Innovation diffusion in heterogeneous populations: Contagion, social influence, and social learning. American Economic Review, 99(5), 1899–1924.CrossRef

Titel: Informal Information-Exchange Networks in Rural Low-Tech Clusters
verfasst von: Anant Kamath
Verlag: Springer India
Buch: Inclusive Innovation
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-3927-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-81-322-3929-1

Copyright-Jahr: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3929-1_5

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Springer Professional "Technik"

Premium Partner