Global Innovation Network, gendered entrepreneurship, and sustainability: Results from interventions in Uganda in the Global South

Abstract
Inspired by the Global Innovation Network (GIN) approach (Chaminade and Vang, 2008, Lundvall et al 2011) that emphasizes interactive learning, actors’ embedding in territorial institutional innovation systems, and the importance of systemic effects including the interaction between relevant actors, this paper makes a focused contribution on how multistakeholder interventions incorporate MNCs, social business, global and local universities, and female farmers in Uganda. The interventions aim at creating a new revenue stream based on coffee flower and facilitate transition into a sustainable coffee production with new global products (energy drinks with coffee flowers). The universities support gendered entrepreneurial agency by providing entrepreneurship training to female farmers, MNCs support complex global innovation dynamics by introducing new technologies (precision irrigation machines) and collaborate with farmers, the universities develop ethical drones inspired by Value Sensitive Design principles enabling interaction with the irrigation machines to enhance water efficiency (which the MNCs can use in its home country for precision farming). Due to the exploratory nature of the research, the interventions are analyzed based on a grounded research methodology. This allows for gaining an open and non-deterministic understanding of not only the effect of the interventions but also how the design of interventions shape and influence the agency of especially the female entrepreneurs and their abilities to leverage advantages from the interventions. The paper thereby contributes to establishing a research trajectory that restates the GIN approach addressing the global sustainable challenges by providing new theoretical and empirical insights concerning agency, gendered entrepreneurship, sustainability, and interventions research.