Business Model Innovation

This growth has largely been driven by socio-economic and political imperatives to improve rural livelihood and by technological innovation. Based on a content analysis of 232 scholarly articles, the literature is categorized into four focal lenses: technology, institutional, viability and user-centric. We ? nd that the ? rst two dominate the RE debate. The viability lens has been used less frequently, whilst the user-centric lens began to engage scholars as late as 2007. However, there are business models that avoid this problem: in Bangladesh, the operational risk remained with Grameen Shakti, although ownership was immediately transferred to the customer (Alamgir, 1999). We found no single RE paper that explicitly incorporated these replacement costs and associated risks in their analysis of the purchasing decision. Â  Reliability The reliability of electricity provision is an important parameter in the customer’s decision-to-connect. We understand reliability as a combination of quality, service level and suf? ciency (timely delivery of desired quantity). Peters et al. (2010) con? rm that locally conceived projects could overcome barriers that would otherwise arise, while Hossein Mondal et al. (2010) state that involving local stakeholders will facilitate RET diffusion. Involving the community from the conception stage thus reduces the ‘not invented here syndrome’ and improves acceptance of new technologies. They conclude that technology push projects seldom involve local communities and that this lack of involvement might be one of the crucial reasons for their demise. On an outcome level, Reiche et al. (2000) state that giving local communities ownership will also increase sustainability.