Beyond Resource Scarcity and Individual Creativity: Processes and Conditions of Practicing Frugality for Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT The literature on frugal innovation conceptualizes frugality as a value orientation or a set of resourceful practices that promote the sustainable use of available material and ecological resources. It suggests that various manifestations of frugality contribute to addressing local needs and global challenges. However, the process through which frugality manifests and the conditions that enable it remain insufficiently conceptualized. Consequently, frugality is often understood as a generic or spontaneous phenomenon. To address this research gap, this paper examines the processes and conditions of learning and manifesting frugality. It finds that learning and manifesting frugality involves at least four key sequential stages: motivation, ideation, translation, and manifestation, along with an intermediary threshold stage between translation and manifestation. Reaching the threshold stage entails translating internalized motivation and ideation into a clearly visible, ‘good enough’ solution to a problem. Both individual and institutional conditions shape the process of learning and manifesting frugality. Caste, gender, resource ownership, access to institutions, familiarity with technology, participation in knowledge‐sharing networks, and the availability of credit constitute key conditions for learning and manifesting frugality. This paper argues that those in greatest need may not be able to reach the threshold stage in manifesting frugality. Instead, the manifestation of frugality is most evident among the relatively privileged, as they are better equipped to navigate enabling conditions. Thus, a process‐oriented and contextual conceptualization of frugality is essential for tailoring institutional support to different social groups and minimizing the risk of reproducing existing inequalities in bottom‐up learning and innovation.