NEW SOURCES OF GROWTH: THE ROLE OF FRUGAL INNOVATION AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Abstract

This paper’s main thesis is that frugal innovation and transformational leadership offeradditional sources of growth. Our main contribution is the proposal of what we referto as the breakthrough possibility frontier (BPF) model, which integrates two aspectsof leadership: innovation quality (frugal innovation) and leadership competency(transformational leadership). We test the BPF model on two groups of respondents,one group consisting of university students who had never been formal leadersand the other formal leaders who had office experience. The BPF analysis suggeststhat transformational leadership is a game changer, required for breakthroughs.Transformational leadership is key to encouraging innovation quality and leadershipcompetency and, we argue, to facilitating new sources of growth. Our results implythe development of an integrated institutional framework for innovation. We believethat innovative leadership development programs that can be easily implementedand replicated in other regions are needed to develop transformational leadershipcompetencies.