This track invites work that theorizes and tests how frugal, good-enough, and cost innovations contribute to sustainability outcomes across environmental, social, ethical, legal, and economic dimensions, including when performance expectations increase while resources contract (de Waal, 2017). Submissions may examine design principles, adoption dynamics, and trade-offs in doing more with less without romanticizing constraint as inherently positive (Chen and Shen, 2023; Johnson and Bicen, 2013).

This track focuses on the internal and inter-organizational changes required for resource-constrained innovation, including governance, portfolio management, procurement, accounting logics, supply chain configuration, service delivery, and after-sales support (de Waal, 2017). Contributions might analyze how organizations build the managerial and cultural capabilities to convert constraint into disciplined efficacy and when such conversion fails (Johnson and Bicen, 2013).

This track centres on how infrastructural constraints, fragmented distribution systems, and service limitations shape sustainable innovation outcomes, including circular flows, reverse logistics, maintenance, repair, and end-of-life strategies (de Waal, 2017). Submissions are encouraged to link supply chain integrity, traceability, and resource efficiency to the practical realities of constrained operating environments.

This track examines how resource-constrained innovation intersects with inclusion, affordability, accessibility, and distributive justice, including base-of-the-pyramid and underserved communities, such as indigenous and physically challenged, in both emerging and advanced economies (de Waal, 2017). Possible topics include co-design, community-based intermediaries, gendered and youth-led innovation, and the ethics of “good-enough” design under inequality (Johnson and Bicen, 2013).

This track invites micro- and meso-level studies of how individuals, teams, and ventures innovate through recombination, repair, reuse, and creative repurposing, and how these practices connect to circular economy aims (Chen and Shen, 2023). Submissions may compare the innovation effects of different constraint types, including knowledge versus financial constraints, and explore when bricolage becomes scalable capability rather than a short-term workaround (Chen and Shen, 2023; Johnson and Bicen, 2013).

This track focuses on digital platforms, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain, and data governance approaches that enable sustainability performance in low-resource settings, including low-connectivity environments, such as rural and remote communities, and limited institutional capacity (de Waal, 2017). Submissions might explore lightweight architectures, minimum viable data approaches, and the organizational adaptations needed to embed these tools across functions and partners (de Waal, 2017).

This track invites analyses of how public policy, standards regimes, and regulatory constraints shape innovation choices and sustainability impacts, including the enabling and disabling effects of compliance costs and reporting requirements (de Waal, 2017). Submissions may examine how organizations substitute resources and build capabilities to meet standards under constraint and how policy design can avoid pushing costs onto the most resource-limited actors (Johnson and Bicen, 2013).

This track seeks methodological and empirical work on measuring outcomes and avoiding austerity theatre, including rigorous evaluation designs, performance metrics, life-cycle thinking, and evidence of real-world adoption (de Waal, 2017). Submissions might address how organizations validate assumptions under constraint and what counts as credible efficacy when resources for monitoring and evaluation are limited (Chen and Shen, 2023).

3–5-page research abstracts, other than full papers (please see the note above for format).

Workshop proposals on any of the above or closely related topics are welcome.