Appendix Jugaad (literature analysis and Interview Analysis)

Dataset Description: Jugaad Innovation – Literature & Fieldwork
1. Composition of the Dataset

The dataset integrates two complementary sources of qualitative material that together provide a holistic view of Jugaad innovation as both a theoretical construct and a lived practice.

1.1 Literature-Based Thematic Analysis (119 studies)
This portion of the dataset is derived from academic scholarship, including journal articles, books, and reports that address the concept of Jugaad innovation. Each text is thematically coded, with definitions, interpretations, and discussions carefully categorized. A systematic color-coding framework highlights the recurring dimensions associated with Jugaad, such as improvisation, local sourcing, frugality, makeshift solutions, cost-effectiveness, adversity, informality, ethical ambiguity, and temporariness. This provides a consolidated map of how scholars have framed and problematized the term across different contexts and disciplines, enabling an understanding of both definitional diversity and thematic clustering.

1.2 Empirical Case Study Interviews (18 cases)
Complementing the literature analysis are 18 in-depth interviews with individuals and families who describe their own experiences of grassroots Jugaad practices. Each case is documented through multiple layers of qualitative analysis. The process begins with open coding, which captures the lived realities of financial scarcity, material scavenging, heuristic decision-making, and safety trade-offs. Memo writing then articulates the underlying drivers, processes, and compromises that shape these practices. The material is further enriched through theoretical integration, linking observed behaviours to established frameworks such as bounded rationality, satisficing, present bias, social learning, and risk normalization. The data is organized into axial categories, grouping evidence under financial, spatial, material, social, temporal, and environmental dimensions. Finally, each case identifies a core category-often revolving around “Improvised Survival Innovation”- and concludes with narratives that juxtapose present coping strategies with aspirational visions for the future.

The dataset is versatile and relevant to multiple domains of inquiry. For academic research, it offers a strong empirical and theoretical base for comparative studies of innovation under constraints. In policy and development studies, it highlights how low-resource communities innovate to cope with adversity, informing inclusive policy interventions. In design and engineering studies, it offers insights into alternative logics of problem-solving beyond formalized R&D. Finally, in cross-cultural analysis, it provides material for examining how a grassroots South Asian concept like Jugaad travels into global discourse, raising questions of translation, appropriation, and cultural specificity.