AMBIGUITY AND MISDIRECTION? BRING IT ON! LESSONS ABOUT OVERCOMING FROM WOMEN MARKET TRADERS

Abstract

This chapter looks to an unlikely source—women market traders in subsistence marketplaces—for practical insights into innovation under constraints. It examines how women market traders innovatively navigate uncertain and hostile environments, and how they sometimes break rules to take advantage of ambiguity and misdirection in market environments. The examination makes a strong case for companies allowing similar behaviors when business constraints exist and intersect. The chapter focuses on women market traders, who operate market kiosks and sell door-to-door around the world, and on the gender and social class constraints that they endure and overcome, similar to race and culture constraints. Unique constraints, such as low literacy and numeracy, unhygienic work conditions, and compromised administrative systems, and similar institutional constraints in companies, give rise to innovative thinking. The chapter closes with practical suggestions to help the companies develop low-end innovation capabilities.

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