Co-creation Strategy in Empowering Indigenous Women’s Innovation in Indonesia: Empirical Evidence of Weaver Community Entrepreneurs in West Nusa Tenggara

Abstract

Innovation is the main key to the sustainability of all industries. The fashion industry with traditional woven fabrics as the basic material is one of the complex industries due to its association with the social environment in terms of cultural value, market taste, chain value, life-cycle products, and even government policy. This study analyzes the problems and strategies in empowering women entrepreneurs in the context of indigenous peoples in Indonesia by boosting innovation based on the indigenous knowledge conversion. Focusing on the indigenous innovation created by the weaving community in West Nusa Tenggara, this study employs several concepts, namely, resource-based view and indigenous knowledge, knowledge conversion, and social innovation. Studies of indigenous knowledge in Indonesia are commonly drawn from the anthropological perspective and merely a small number of them use perspectives from business administration. This study applies mixed methods and collects data through questionnaires, observations, and in-depth interviews. The primary and secondary data are collected during several months of field study with a local partner as a gatekeeper. The questionnaire is derived from the concepts of knowledge conversion practice. Observation is also conducted to obtain a deeper understanding of the process of making traditional fabrics. In-depth interviews are conducted to explain the results of the survey. The informants for this study represent all kinds of stakeholder, namely, women entrepreneurs, associations, clusters of women weavers, financial intermediaries, local governments, small business employees, the local community, etc. According to the resource-based view, it is possible for the indigenous knowledge to be a source of competitive advantage because it can create the indigenous innovation to produce inimitable unique traditional fabrics. Each local area in Indonesia has its own distinctive characteristics. Indigenous knowledge is a tacit knowledge originating from the ancestors and is usually passed through generations. Indigenous knowledge is a knowledge-based local wisdom that is difficult to imitate. Innovative activities are done by the indigenous peoples as a part of human activities relatively rare. The results of this study indicate that empowering small businesses that create traditional fabrics and belong to local people, particularly women weavers, faces several problems. These problems include inadequate support from the local government, the limited capacity of local human resources, difficult access to capital, difficulties in marketing, limited supply of raw materials, and debates on local cultural values vs economic values. Therefore, this study proposes co-creation activities with outside stakeholders. The involvement of different relevant stakeholders is important to overcome the existing problems. The traditional woven co-creation in design requires the involvement of social actors in the social learning process. The indigenous co-creation of traditional woven fabrics is a social innovation learning activity that requires context and the adequate involvement of actors. This collaboration model emphasizes the important of an open innovation activity as a keyword for empowering the indigenous communities and boosting indigenous innovation. This policy recommendation is significantly valuable for decision-makers at the local government level.