Publication Trends in the Informal Sector Innovation Research

Innovation research, representing other than the formal sector, has gained momentum in the last two decades and different terms like grassroots innovations, frugal innovations, jugaad, inclusive innovations and informal sector innovations are used. These key terms have specific and contextual meaning and represent different sets of innovations that are different from its traditional or Schumpeterian understanding of innovations. The Scopus and Google Scholar database suggest that since 2005, the number of publications has increased and focus is given on publishing research on informal sector innovations. Further scientometric analysis of Scopus database on parameters of the subject area, document type, country of publication, source journal and institutional affiliation is conducted. The results suggest that in the last one decade the relevance of such innovations have been recognised by academicians and policymakers alike and most of studies or cases are coming from developing economies, especially India. This also suggests that many government and non-government efforts have been made to identify the role of informal sector innovations in developing economies in a major way.

Keywords: Frugal Innovations, Grassroots Innovations, Inclusive Innovations, Informal Sector Innovations, Jugaad, scientometrics