Inclusive Innovation and Rapid Sociotechnical Transitions: The Case of Mobile Money in Kenya

Elsie Onsongo () and Johan Schot ()
Additional contact information
Johan Schot: University of Sussex - Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU)

SPRU Working Paper Series from SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: Mobile money innovation is at the centre of a sociotechnical transformation in the financial services sector in Kenya that saw changes in the regulatory framework, in market shares, user practices and social networks across multiple regimes. While sociotechnical transitions often take about 50 years, the mobile money revolution in Kenya has taken only 15 years, and has resulted in remarkable levels of financial inclusion of marginalised people. In this paper we combine the multi-level perspective (MLP) from the sustainability transitions literature and the Ladder of Inclusivity (LII) from the inclusive innovation literature to explain this rapid transformation. Applying both frameworks to the case enables us to elucidate potential areas for cross-fertilisation between MLP and LII, thus responding to calls for the inclusion of a social dimension in the transitions perspective, while explaining how processes of change envisioned (but weakly defined) in LII can be explored. Based on our findings, we hypothesise that a rapid socio-technical system transition takes 1) strong landscape pressures, an opening up of regime which makes regime actors willing to act and strong niche development all oriented towards the same goal, and 2) regime actors motivated by the normative goal to take risks and respond favourably to the mix of developments at all three levels.

Keywords: Sustainability transitions; multilevel perspective; inclusive innovation; ladder of inclusivity; mobile money; financial services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php? ... nd-schot.pdf&site=25 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sru:ssewps:2017-07

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SPRU Working Paper Series from SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by University of Sussex Business School Communications Team ().