Analysing appropriateness in appropriate technology for achieving sustainability: A multi-sectorial examination in a developing economy

Abstract

Appropriate technology has emerged as a critical driver for sustainable development in developing countries where a massive population depends on small and medium-sized businesses. Appropriate technologies are energy-efficient, which corresponds to environmental sustainability. The benefits of appropriate technology may range from providing economic sustainability for availing affordable solutions in a resource-constrained environment to promoting social sustainability by fostering inclusivity of marginalized sections of the society. However, the appropriateness, which is the perceived quality of appropriate technology, largely remains unaddressed in prior research. Therefore, the current study proposes a framework to explore determinants of appropriateness and examine the interplay among them anchored on resource mobilization theory. Four case organizations of a developing country are empirically analyzed to obtain appropriateness factors from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, namely, enterprises, developers, and users. Next, a decision-making technique is applied to derive the cause-effect relationship between the identified factors. The results contribute five factors of appropriateness: technological, socio-economic, organizational, market, and environment to the literature on appropriate technology. The former three factors induce the latter two factors of appropriateness. Understanding the interplay among the indicators from a multi-stakeholder perspective assists the policymakers in facilitating the adoption of appropriate technologies at the grassroots level to achieve sustainable development goals in developing economies.