sustainability-11-02105.pdf (275.17 kB)
Can Pay-As-You-Go, digitally enabled business models support sustainability transformations in developing countries? Outstanding questions and a theoretical basis for future research
Version 2 2023-06-12, 09:04
Version 1 2023-06-09, 17:30
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-12, 09:04 authored by David OckwellDavid Ockwell, Joanes Atela, Kenedy Mbeva, Victoria Chengo, Robert ByrneRobert Byrne, Rachael DurrantRachael Durrant, Victoria Kasprowikz, Adrian ElyAdrian ElyThis paper examines the rapidly emerging and rapidly changing phenomenon of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) digitally enabled business models, which have had significant early success in providing poor people with access to SDG relevant technologies (e.g. for electricity access, water and sanitation and agricultural irrigation). Data is analysed based on literature review, two stakeholder workshops (or “transformation labs”) and stakeholder interviews (engaging 41 stakeholders in total). This demonstrates the existing literature on PAYG is patchy at best, with no comprehensive or longitudinal, and very little theoretically grounded, research to date. The paper contributes to existing research on PAYG and sustainability transformations more broadly in two key ways. Firstly, it articulates a range of questions that remain to be answered in order to understand and deliver against the current and potential contribution of PAYG to effecting sustainability transformations (the latter we define as achieving environmental sustainability and social justice). These questions focus at three levels: national contexts for fostering innovation and technology uptake; the daily lives of poor and marginalised women and men, and; global political economies and value accumulation. Secondly, the paper articulates three areas of theory (based on emerging critical social science research on sustainable energy access) that have potential to support future research that might answer these questions, namely: socio-technical innovation system building; social practice, and; global political economy and value chain analysis. Whilst recognising existing tensions between these three areas of theory, we argue that rapid sustainability transformations demand a level of epistemic pragmatism. Such pragmatism, we argue, can be achieved by situating research using any of the above areas of theory within the broader context of Leach et al.’s (2010) Pathways Approach. This allows for exactly the kind of interdisciplinary approach, based on a commitment to pluralism and the co-production of knowledge, and firmly rooted in a commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice, that the SDGs demand.
Funding
Transformations to Sustainability programme; ISSC2015- TKN150224114426
ESRC; ES/I021620/1
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
SustainabilityISSN
2071-1050Publisher
MDPIExternal DOI
Issue
7Volume
11Page range
2105 1-21Department affiliated with
- SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2019-04-04First Open Access (FOA) Date
2019-04-11First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2019-04-03Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC