Doctoral Dissertation Research in Science of Science and Innovation Policy: Innovation by Users in Emerging Economies and Impacts on Innovation Policy: Evidence from Mobile Bank

传统上，创新是为工业化国家的公司保留的，因为这些公司能够获得创新所需的资源。然而，在全球化时代，通信是廉价的，信息是一种商品，全球贸易增加了技术的扩散。因此，新兴市场的企业和用户可以较早地接触到最新的技术和信息，再加上移动电话等工具，使他们能够定制产品以满足当地的需求。由于需求高而产品和服务供应少，新兴市场存在巨大的潜在需求，这是预计来自全球南方欠发达国家的发明将不断增加的原因。本项目研究新兴市场作为创新的新来源，并讨论这些创新的扩散对政策的影响。特别是，它着眼于新兴市场的特点，使特定形式的创新，如用户创新和节俭创新，并分析了这是如何鼓励技术从新兴市场流向工业化国家的。本研究围绕三个研究目标进行。首先，它探讨了新兴市场的用户是否会创新。一个独特的手工收集的数据集在移动银行行业的创新被用来了解用户（相对于公司）是否在新兴市场的服务创新中发挥作用，以及这些创新是否具有全球意义。其次，该项目分析了用户创新和节俭创新等新型创新如何导致技术向相反方向流动。它特别关注新兴市场创新的南北扩散以及用户创新扩散的不同类型。尽管有证据表明越来越多的新产品和服务起源于新兴市场，但关于这一主题的创新研究却很缺乏。第三，提出了模型。基于经验模式？这解释了技术获取的增加与潜在需求的结合如何能够推动南方的创新和进入，以及随后如何发生南北技术扩散。更广泛的影响。该项目将深入了解新兴市场中管理技术发现、采用和传播的机制，这是一个尚未得到充分研究的领域。由于创新的中心不再是西方国家的企业所独有，而是正在向新兴市场的用户和企业转移，这对学术界和政策制定者来说都是一个重要的话题。这项研究将作出重大贡献，因为虽然对产品中的用户创新进行了大量研究，但对服务中的用户创新及其扩散几乎没有研究，然而服务往往构成绝大多数经济活动。此外，该项目还开发了一种数据收集和分析方法，可用于后续研究，特别是针对服务业创新来源的实证研究。

Traditionally innovation has been reserved for firms in industrialized nations, because these firms had access to the resources needed for innovation. However, in the age of globalization, communication is cheap, information is a commodity, and global trade increases technological diffusion. As a result, firms and users in emerging markets get early exposure to the latest technologies and information that, in combination with access to tools such as mobile phones, enables them to customize products to solve local needs. Large latent demand in emerging markets, which results from high need and a sparse offering of products and services, is a reason to expect increasing invention originating from less developed countries in the global South. This project studies emerging markets as new sources of innovation and discusses implications of the diffusion of these innovations for policy. In particular, it looks at characteristics of emerging markets that enable specific forms of innovation, such as user innovation and frugal innovation, and also analyzes how this encourages technology flows from emerging markets to industrialized nations. This research is structured around three research objectives. First, it explores whether users in emerging markets innovate. A unique hand-collected dataset on innovations in the mobile banking industry is used to understand whether users (as opposed to firms) play a role in service innovation in emerging markets, and whether those innovations are globally meaningful. Second, the project analyzes how new types of innovation such as user innovation and frugal innovation are leading to flows of technology in a reverse direction. In particular it focuses on South-North diffusion of emerging market innovations as well as different typologies of the diffusion of user innovations. Despite evidence that a growing number of new products and services originate in emerging markets, there is a dearth of innovation research on this topic. Third, a model is proposed ? based on empirical patterns? that explains how increased access to technology in combination with latent demand can drive innovation and entry in the South and how, subsequently, South-North technology diffusion can occur. Broader Impacts. The project will provide insight on the mechanisms that govern discovery, adoption and diffusion of technology in emerging markets, a largely understudied area. Because the locus of innovation is no longer unique to firms in Western countries and is shifting to users and firms in emerging markets, this is an important topic for both the academic community and policy makers. This study will contribute significantly because, while there has been significant research on user innovation in products, there exists virtually no research on user innovation in services or their diffusion, yet services often constitute the vast majority of economic activity. Furthermore, this project develops a data-collection and analysis methodology that can be applied to follow-on research, especially empirical studies looking at sources of innovation in services.