Bridging Technology and Markets in the Himalayan Region: An Inclusive Business Model for Clean Energy Adoption

1. Introduction

Entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as an indispensable mechanism for addressing complex developmental challenges, particularly in fragile and resource-constrained environments (Barquet et al., 2025; Paudel, 2025). In mountainous economies such as the Himalayan region of South Asia, comprising Nepal (Dey et al., 2024; Vogel et al., 2025) and Bhutan (Prakash et al., 2024), where geography (Usman et al., 2024) and infrastructure deficits (Dhar et al., 2025) constrain conventional industrial development, entrepreneurship fosters livelihood diversification (Putra et al., 2025) and value creation (Arbelo-Pérez et al., 2025) in small-scale farming systems marked by remoteness (Thakur et al., 2025), energy scarcity (Reddy & Rahut, 2025), and climate sensitivity (Korsgaard et al., 2025). Postharvest loss remains a persistent problem in Himalayan agriculture (Adhikari et al., 2025). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates such losses at 30–40% of total production in developing countries, translating to economic waste that undermines nutrition (Khan et al., 2024), food security (Shahbazi et al., 2025) livelihoods (Talachutla, 2024), market access (Li et al., 2024), and income generation (Sengupta et al., 2024). These problems are intensified by the absence and/or shortage of electricity (Gay et al., 2024), inadequate storage (Innocent, 2023), poor roads (Mohamed et al., 2024) and limited processing (Wang et al., 2024), particularly for fruits, vegetables, and high-value crops (Gowda & Raj, 2025). Conventional open sun drying is a common postharvest approach (Salvador et al., 2025); however, it yields inconsistent quality (Essilfie et al., 2025) and high spoilage rates (Rashid, 2024). Improved solar dryers offer superior alternatives with controlled conditions (Salvador et al., 2025), contamination protection (Amissah et al., 2025), shorter drying cycles (Sharma et al., 2025), and better product quality (Vijayavenkataraman et al., 2012) and electricity (Seppälä et al., 2019). These solar dryers provide a sustainable (Venkateswarlu & Reddy, 2024), cost-effective means to reduce losses and increase the market value for smallholder farmers (Udomkun et al., 2020).

Despite the compelling technical and economic advantages of improved solar dryers, their adoption remains low, uneven, and frequently unsustainable beyond project life cycles. Existing studies predominantly emphasize engineering efficiency and technological performance of improved solar dryers, while insufficient attention is given to the socioeconomic, institutional, and business dimensions that shape long-term adoption. The literatures indicate that failures are not primarily due to limitations in technology transfer but rather stem from deeper structural issues, including weak local maintenance ecosystems, limited entrepreneurial incentives, inadequate financing mechanisms, and a lack of market integration. Moreover, studies inadequately explain how inclusive and context-sensitive business models can bridge the gap between technological potential and sustained utilization, particularly for smallholder farmers, rural entrepreneurs, and women-led cooperatives operating in resource-constrained and geographically isolated settings. This reveals a critical gap in understanding the intersection of technology adoption, institutional arrangements, and inclusive entrepreneurship.

This study draws on three complementary theoretical perspectives. First, Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers et al., 2003) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003) provide the conceptual vocabulary for understanding how technology characteristics, user perceptions, and environmental facilitating conditions shape adoption direction. However, mainstream adoption theories primarily address initial uptake and fail to capture post adoption sustainability challenges, especially those that are critical in fragile mountain contexts (Gerlitz et al., 2016; Rahman et al., 2025). Second, inclusive business model (IBM) theory (Cinderby et al., 2024, p. 103668; Dionizi & Dhora, 2025, p. 10; Doda et al., 2025, p. 2) offers a framework for understanding how commercially viable business architectures can integrate low-income communities into productive value chains as producers, entrepreneurs, consumers and suppliers. Third, institutional theory (Derks et al., 2022; Moretti et al., 2023; Xu & Grumbine, 2026) contextualizes the role of governance structures, policy coherence, and social norms in shaping entrepreneurial opportunity and sustained adoption pathways for technology, particularly in the contrasting governance environments of Nepal and Bhutan.

Nepal and Bhutan offer theoretically productive contrasting cases for this investigation. Nepal operates under a market-driven, donor-influenced development paradigm characterized by fragmented policy interventions, weak extension system and institutional voids (Sugden, 2021). In contrast, Bhutan follows a state-coordinated development model anchored in its Gross National Happiness (GNH) philosophy, which prbioritizes long-term sustainability, integrated five-year planning, and policy coherence (Rai, 2024; Turner & Wangchuk, 2025). Despite sharing broadly similar agroecological conditions, such as high altitude, seasonal climate variability, geographic remoteness, and smallholder-dominated agriculture, these two countries present markedly different institutional environments. This institutional diversity makes them valuable natural experimental cases for examining how context shapes the effectiveness of inclusive business model configurations for solar dryer adoption, a comparison that has been largely absent from the literature to date.

To address persistent gap, the present study draws on inclusive business model theory, sustainable entrepreneurship, and innovation diffusion perspectives to develop a conceptual framework and research agenda that examines how inclusive business models can enhance the adoption, scalability, and sustainability of improved solar dryers in Nepal and Bhutan while accounting for their distinct yet comparable institutional contexts.

This study develops a context-sensitive conceptual framework that integrates sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation diffusion and inclusive business models to explain the persistent gap between the technological potential and actual adoption of improved solar dryers. This finding demonstrates that adoption is shaped less by technological performance and more by the alignment of business models with local institutions, market systems, and community capabilities. Emphasizing smallholder farmers, rural entrepreneurs, and women-led cooperatives, this study highlights how inclusive approaches can enhance sustainability, scalability, and socioeconomic impact. A comparative analysis of Nepal and Bhutan further reveals how different governance system influence the design and effectiveness of such models while outlining a future research agenda for inclusive innovation in resource-constrained settings.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature across four thematic domains: solar drying technology and adoption gaps; technology adoption and diffusion theory; inclusive business model theory; and institutional context and entrepreneurial pathways. Section 3 outlines the methodological approach underpinning the conceptual framework development. Section 4 presents the proposed research model, including the multidimensional adoption barriers, three IBM configurations, operationalization of variables, and empirically testable propositions. Section 5 discusses the theoretical and practical implications. Section 6 concludes with a summary of contributions, limitations, and directions for future research.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Solar Drying Technology: Technical Advances and Adoption Gaps

The literature on solar drying technology is largely dominated by engineering-based studies assessing drying process efficiency, thermal performance, and system design optimization (Mkhize, 2025, p. 3; Mohammed et al., 2025; Okoronkwo et al., 2026), which demonstrate superior quality outcomes from solar drying, including enhanced color retention, reduced contamination, and extended shelf life, compared with open-sun drying (Kidane et al., 2024, p. 13; Rahman et al., 2025; Suraparaju et al., 2024, p. 27757).

However, recent study confirmed that the technical viability of solar dryers in tropical and subtropical contexts, with efficiencies of up to 18–68%, reduced drying times of 25–75%, and improved nutrient retention (Okoronkwo et al., 2026). However, the literature blatantly omits adoption-enabling conditions, with widespread evidence of post-project abandonment due to maintenance challenges, high upfront costs, and a lack of sustained support (Terrapon-Pfaff et al., 2014).

The literature on post-harvest management in mountainous regions further reveals adoption barriers for solar dryers, emerges from energy poverty, remoteness, climate variability, and multidimensional livelihood vulnerabilities (Rashid, 2024). These structural issues underscore that technical superiority alone fails to ensure sustained uptake, highlighting the need for business and institutional interventions. However, the literature provides limited guidance on how environmental conditions specific to Himalayan settings, including heavy snowfall and rainfall, extreme altitude variation (ranging from 500 m to over 5000 m), and highly seasonal solar availability, interact with institutional and business model dynamics to shape adoption patterns that require targeted analytical frameworks (Blushtein-Livnon et al., 2025, p. 20; Gyeltshen et al., 2025; Shah et al., 2026). This entails an exploration into how inclusive business models, particularly those focused on inclusivity and sustainability, can bridge the gap between technological efficacy and successful, sustained adoption in resource-constrained agricultural settings (Lange et al., 2021). Despite strong evidence on technological performance and product quality improvements, the literature remains overly technocentric and fails to explain conditions for sustained adoption in real-world contexts. This suggests that technological superiority alone is insufficient, and greater attention must be given to inclusive business, institutional, and user-centered dimensions.

2.2. Technology Adoption and Diffusion in Agricultural Contexts

Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers et al., 2003) provides a foundational framework for understanding technology spread in social systems, emphasizing five key attributes; compatibility, complexity, trialability, relative advantage, and observability, that determine adoption rates. In Himalayan agriculture settings, particularly for improved solar dryers, these attributes are critical: solar dryers offer clear relative advantages such as 25–75% faster drying times, 18–68% higher efficiencies, and superior nutrient retention over open sun drying (Suraparaju et al., 2024), whereas their off-grid compatibility aligns with energy-scarce regions (Seppälä et al., 2019). In addition, Venkatesh et al. (2003)’s UTAUT integrates multiple models, highlighting performance expectancy (e.g., loss reduction), effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions as adoption drivers, factors amplified by peer networks and extension services in developing-country agriculture (Takahashi et al., 2019).

However, mainstream adoption theories predominantly focus on initial consultation, neglecting postadoption sustainability, especially in vulnerable mountainous contexts where institutional voids, maintenance challenges, and market gaps undermine longevity (Andi & Nurlaili, 2026; Munguia & Bayne, 2025). Cross-sectional analysis of small-scale renewable energy projects in developing countries reveals that sustainability is vital for inventing resilient solar dryer strategies and Himalayan vulnerabilities such as remoteness and climate variability (Gerlitz et al., 2016). While diffusion theories provide valuable insights into adoption behavior, they inadequately apprehend the structural constraints and institutional complexities faced by smallholder farmers in resource-constrained settings. This confines their explanatory power in contexts where adoption is shaped by systemic, rather than purely individual, factors.

2.3. Inclusive Business Models: Theory and Himalayan Applicability

Inclusive business are commercially viable model that produce value for and with low-income communities, integrating them into value chains as consumers, producers, or entrepreneurs (Kolk et al., 2013); subsequent theories emphasize mutually beneficial value creation for low-income stakeholders, promoting both social impact and business sustainability (“The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits,” 2005). Similarly, Schaltegger et al. (2015) frame sustainable business model as transcending shareholder primacy to generate shared value with society and the environment, aligning with solar drying’s potential for resource efficiency in off-grid, vulnerable contexts.

Inclusive business model frameworks commonly identify value creation, delivery, and capture as core pillars, adapted to IBMs to integrate marginalized communities into value chains, ensuring sustainable delivery mechanisms, and equitably distribute benefits (Davies & Doherty, 2018). Furthermore, Dembek et al. (2018) define sustainable value creation in base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) markets as generating value for multiple stakeholders and the natural environment, addressing the adoption gaps in solar drying noted earlier, such as high costs and maintenance, through inclusive financing, local partnerships, and scalable microenterprises (Lange et al., 2021).

Despite these compelling advances, IBM theory reveals critical geographic and sectoral gaps, with few applications to mountain agro-processing or renewable energy microenterprises in developing countries such as Nepal and Bhutan (Amankwah-Amoah & Hinson, 2024, p. 106726; Shrivastava et al., 2024). This underscores the need for context-specific IBMs to bridge technical efficacy and technological performance (Section 2.1) with sustainable adoption of dryers (Section 2.2) amid Himalayan institutional and livelihood challenges. This gap is especially significant given that IBM configurations must account not only for standard BoP constraints but also for altitude-induced supply chain disruptions, the seasonality of solar radiation at high altitudes, heterogeneous governance that characterizes Nepal’s and Bhutan’s agricultural institutional environments. Moreover, there remains a critical need for deeper empirical investigations into business models specifically designed to address poverty and create comprehensive value for diverse stakeholders in challenging environments, while the literature only highlights the significance of understanding how business models function within the bottom-of-pyramid contexts (Jochen & Dennis, 2024). Similarly, literatures highlighted the potential of inclusive business models to address market and social gaps; yet these models remain conceptually fragmented and lack empirical investigation in technology adoption contexts. Thus, this indicates a need for an integrated framework that links inclusivity with technological diffusion and institutional realities.

2.4. Institutional Context and Entrepreneurial Pathways

The theoretical perspective of institutional economics, as developed by North (North, 1990) and elaborated upon in subsequent organizational reviews (Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2017), provides the analytical lens for understanding how formal institutions such as laws, regulations, property rights and informal institutions such as norms, customs, culture shape entrepreneurial pathways. Nepal’s institutional environment is characterized by fragmented governance, donor-driven project cycles, weak policy coherence, and significant institutional voids (Sugden, 2021). This contrasts sharply with Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness-oriented paradigm, which emphasizes long-term state coordination, integrated five-year development plans, and strong policy coherence for sustainability (Dorji et al., 2026; Lara & Trotter, 2026; Masaki & Tshering, 2025). These contextual variances underscore the risks of applying uniform inclusive business models, as institutional theory highlights the need for context-sensitive entrepreneurial strategies to navigate diverse voids and opportunities (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).

Gender and social inclusion factors are pivotal for solar dryer adoption pathways, as women, often primary postharvest processors in remote Himalayan households, face intersecting barriers. Bhattarai et al. (2015) demonstrated how gender, caste, and class intersections mediate resource access and technology uptake amid environmental vulnerabilities. Nightingale (2010) echoes this through the “feminization of agriculture” in rural transformations, where shifts in women’s roles rarely yield empowerment or agency gains, complicating sustained IBM-driven adoption. Thus, the institutional context profoundly shapes entrepreneurial opportunities and technology adoption pathways, particularly in the nuanced setting of Himalayan agriculture (Kini, 2022).

Collectively, the literature reveals a fragmented understanding where technological innovation, adoption behavior, and inclusive business approaches are studied in isolation. This underscores the need for an integrated conceptual framework that bridges these domains to explain sustainable adoption in marginalized and resource-constrained environments.

3. Materials and Methods

The major aim of this study is to propose a conceptual framework and research agenda rather than reporting empirical findings. Accordingly, the methodological approach is oriented toward theory development rather than data collection and analysis. This position is consistent with established traditions of conceptual and theoretical contributions in management and sustainability research, where a systematic literature review and theoretically guided synthesis constitute recognized and rigorous methodological choices.

This study adopted a literature review as its primary method. Drawing on established guidelines for structured reviews in management and sustainability research, relevant literature was identified through searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar via keywords such as solar dryer adoption, inclusive business models, Pyramid bases, technology adoption, Himalayan agriculture, institutional theory, Nepal, and Bhutan. Articles were screened for relevance across four thematic domains: solar drying technology and postharvest management; technology adoption and diffusion; inclusive business models and sustainable entrepreneurship; and institutional context and gender inclusion. The screening process applied the following inclusion criteria: (a) peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and gray literature published between 2000 and 2026; (b) direct relevance to at least one of the four thematic domains; and (c) geographic relevance to developing countries, BoPs, or high-altitude agricultural contexts. Studies that failed to meet these criteria were excluded. A total of 74 sources were retained for synthesis after screening for relevance, recency (prioritizing publications from 2000–2026), and theoretical contribution.

The conceptual framework was developed through theoretically guided synthesis, drawing on three established theoretical lenses as sensitizing concepts: Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers et al., 2003) and UTAUT (Venkatesh et al., 2003) for understanding adoption dynamics; Bocken et al. (2013) and Dembek et al. (2018) for inclusive business model architecture; and North (1990) and DiMaggio & Powell (1983) for institutional analysis. These lenses were combined to construct an integrative, multilevel framework linking the macrolevel institutional context, meso-level business model configurations, and microlevel adoption outcomes. The comparative selection of Nepal and Bhutan as the empirical sites for the forthcoming research agenda follows a maximum variation logic: both countries share agroecological characteristics relevant to solar drying yet differ markedly in governance orientation. Nepal’s fragmented, donor-driven environment versus Bhutan’s state-coordinated, GNH-aligned system, making them theoretically productive contrasting cases for institutional analysis in the case of inclusive business development through the lens of improved solar dryer adoption. The absence of primary empirical data constitutes a deliberate delimitation of this study. The conceptual framework generated herein is intended to provide testable propositions and a structured research agenda for subsequent qualitative and mixed-methods empirical investigations in Nepal and Bhutan, which is consistent with the theory-building methodology advocated in management and entrepreneurship research.

4. Proposed Research Model and Conceptual Framework

This section presents the proposed conceptual framework which is considered the central theoretical contribution of this paper. The framework integrates three analytical levels: the macrolevel institutional context, the meso-level business model configurations, and the microlevel adoption outcomes. It is grounded in a synthesis of multidimensional adoption barrier analysis (Section 4.1), business model typology (Section 4.2), and the visual model (Section 4.3).

4.1. The Multidimensional Adoption Problem

Literature reviews and initial baseline assessment demonstrate that the failure to adopt solar dryers stems from a combination of six interdependent dimensions of adoption barriers, as summarized in Table 1.

Economic viability is linked to market linkages (Salvador et al., 2025); market development is linked to institutional support (Barzigar et al., 2025); and institutional support is linked to geographic accessibility (Huey et al., 2024, p. 12; Rasimphi et al., 2025, p. 9). All factors are also mediated by socio-cultural dynamics, including gendered labor. This complex interplay explains why isolated barrier approaches such as access to financing without addressing market linkages or technical support have repeatedly failed (Machala et al., 2022; Salvador et al., 2025). Therefore, the holistic analytical framework is essential for capturing the full spectrum of adoption determinants (Bottazzi et al., 2023, p. 103159; Khadka et al., 2024, p. 13).

4.2. Business Model Configuration

The key theoretical assumption underlying this research is that the sustained adoption of solar dryers hinges not only on technology transfer but also on viable business model ecosystems that holistically address the interdependent multidimensional barriers outlined in Section 4.1:

4.2.1. Microenterprise Model (Producer Centric)

The microenterprise model enables individual farmers or women entrepreneurs to purchase cabinet dryers via microfinance or grants, process their own produce, and sell dried products directly to local markets. This configuration addresses key economic and socio-cultural barriers by promoting household income diversification, nutritional resilience through reduced post-harvest losses, and women’s autonomous enterprise amid gendered labor constraints (Varyvoda et al., 2026). Nonetheless, its viability is undermined by limited market access, technical isolation, and financial vulnerability without cooperative safety nets (Addo et al., 2024, p. 24737; Amissah et al., 2025, p. 9; Fadilah et al., 2025).

4.2.2. Cooperative Shared-Services Model (Community-Centric)

The cooperative shared-services model involves an agricultural cooperative led by women that collectively owns the tunnel dryer, sharing capital costs to overcome high upfront economic barriers (Machala et al., 2022; Salvador et al., 2025). An elected body of cooperatives manages scheduling, maintenance, marketing, and collective bargaining for better market access (Vorley et al., 2009). This configuration delivers economies of scale, shared technical knowledge, and risk pooling to address interdependent barriers in remote Himalayan settings (Cinderby et al., 2024, p. 103665; Dixit et al., 2020; Schneider et al., 2025, p. 73). However, viability depends on governance structure to avert free-riding or elite capture (Bhagti, 2025; Mair & Martí, 2008).

4.2.3. Social Enterprise Service Provider Model (Enterprise-Centric)

The social enterprise service provider model (enterprise-centric) involves a dedicated social enterprise or private firm that invests in large-scale hybrid dryers (blend of solar and electricity), delivers professional drying services to clusters of smallholder farmers, and actively cultivates a parallel market ecosystem for dried products (Santos, 2012; Bruton et al., 2013; Dixit et al., 2020). This configuration integratively addresses all six dimensions of multidimensional barriers: centralizing high upfront capital costs (economic), providing onsite technical maintenance (technical), fabricating upstream supply and downstream buyer linkages (market), bridging institutional voids through advocacy (institutional), mitigating geographic remoteness via centralized facilities (geographic), and promoting inclusive value chains that empower women (social‒cultural) (Balakrishnan et al., 2024, p. 23; Reardon et al., 2024; Utama et al., 2025, p. 13). This model necessitates strong public‒private partnerships and innovative financing mechanisms to overcome these hurdles (Amissah et al., 2025; Le et al., 2024).

Table 2. Summary comparison of the IBM configurations for solar dryer adoption.

Dimension	Micro-Enterprise (Producer-Centric)	Cooperative Shared-Services (Community-Centric)	Social Enterprise Provider (Enterprise-Centric)
Value Creation	Household income, reduced PHLs, women’s enterprise	Economies of scale, shared PHL reduction, social capital	Scalable services, market ecosystem, BoP poverty alleviation
Value Delivery	Individual ownership, microfinance or grants	Collective management, cooperative scheduling	Centralised service delivery, contracts, advocacy
Value Capture	Direct market sales by farmer	Collective bargaining, pooled revenues	Service fees, supply chain margins, social impact funding
Key Risks	Market isolation, technical isolation, financial vulnerability	Free-riding, elite capture, governance failure	Capital requirements, operational complexity, market viability
Institutional Fit	Higher resilience in Nepal’s market-driven context	Better enabled in Bhutan’s state-coordinated context	Requires public-private partnerships; adaptable to both

Source: Compiled by Authors.

Table 2. Summary comparison of the IBM configurations for solar dryer adoption.

Dimension	Micro-Enterprise (Producer-Centric)	Cooperative Shared-Services (Community-Centric)	Social Enterprise Provider (Enterprise-Centric)
Value Creation	Household income, reduced PHLs, women’s enterprise	Economies of scale, shared PHL reduction, social capital	Scalable services, market ecosystem, BoP poverty alleviation
Value Delivery	Individual ownership, microfinance or grants	Collective management, cooperative scheduling	Centralised service delivery, contracts, advocacy
Value Capture	Direct market sales by farmer	Collective bargaining, pooled revenues	Service fees, supply chain margins, social impact funding
Key Risks	Market isolation, technical isolation, financial vulnerability	Free-riding, elite capture, governance failure	Capital requirements, operational complexity, market viability
Institutional Fit	Higher resilience in Nepal’s market-driven context	Better enabled in Bhutan’s state-coordinated context	Requires public-private partnerships; adaptable to both

Source: Compiled by Authors.

4.3. Proposed Research Model

Figure 1 presents the proposed conceptual framework, which integrates the three analytical levels identified above and illustrates the hypothesized relationships among key variables. The framework constitutes the proposed research model for empirical investigation.

4.3.1. Operationalization of Variables

Independent Variable: IBM Configurations (Meso Level): The three IBM configurations, microenterprise (producer centric), cooperative shared services (community centric), and social enterprise service provider (enterprise centric), constitute the primary independent variables. Each configuration represents a distinct bundle of value creation, delivery, and capture mechanisms that directly shape the likelihood and sustainability of solar dryer adoption. IBM configurations are proposed to exert direct positive effects on adoption outcomes when they are designed to address the multidimensional barriers identified in Table 1.

Moderating Variable: Institutional Context (Macro Level): The institutional context, such as governance structures, policy coherence, market infrastructure, and social capital, functions as a moderating variable in the framework. Drawing on institutional theory, it is proposed that the institutional environment moderates the relationship between IBM configurations and adoption outcomes. Specifically, Bhutan’s state-coordinated context is hypothesized to amplify the effectiveness of cooperative and social enterprise models, whereas Nepal’s fragmented, donor-driven context may favor microenterprise models that are more resilient to institutional voids.

Mediating Variable: Multidimensional Adoption Barriers (Intermediate Layer): The six dimensions of adoption barriers, viz., economic, technical, market, socio-cultural, institutional, and geographic function as a mediating variable. IBM configurations exert positive effects on the adoption of outcomes by configuring and reducing these barriers. Without addressing this mediating layer, even well-designed IBM configurations may fail to translate into sustained adoption.

Dependent Variable: Adoptions Outcomes (Micro Level): The dependent variable encompasses three empirically observable adoption outcomes: sustained adoption (long-term use of solar dryers beyond project periods), intermittent or partial adoption (irregular or limited use), and non-adoption or abandonment (failure to adopt or discontinuation). The framework proposes that IBM configurations, moderated by the institutional context and mediated by adoption barriers, significantly determine which outcome is observed.

Feedback Loop: A feedback mechanism is incorporated into this proposed model, reflecting that adoption outcomes in turn influence the institutional context (e.g., through demonstrated impact on livelihoods and food security, which informs policy) and shape future IBM configurations (e.g., through learning and adaptation by entrepreneurs and cooperatives). This dynamic, iterative relationship distinguishes the framework from static adoption models.

Gender and Social Inclusion as a Cross-Cutting Dimension: Gender and social inclusion are explicitly positioned as cross-cutting dimensions that moderate the relationship between IBM configurations and the mediating layer of adoption barriers. IBM configurations that address women’s participations in assets asset ownership, cooperatives management, and income control are proposed to more effectively reduce socio-cultural and economic barriers, thereby improving adoption outcomes, particularly among female-headed households and women’s groups (Bhattarai et al., 2015; Kumar et al., 2025).

4.4. Research Propositions

The proposed framework generates three propositions for empirical investigation:

Table 3. Research Propositions Derived from the Conceptual Framework.

Proposition	Statement
P1	IBM configurations that integrate market linkages, technical services, and financing into a cohesive value proposition will demonstrate significantly higher adoption of sustainability than single-dimension technology transfer models.
P2	Bhutan’s state-coordinated institutional environment will enable cooperative and social enterprise IBM configurations more effectively than Nepal’s fragmented donor-driven environment, where micro-enterprise models may show greater resilience due to market-orientation.
P3	Gender-inclusive IBMs that explicitly address women’s agency—including asset ownership, management participation, and income control—will achieve broader adoption depth among female-headed households and women’s groups.

Source: Authors.

Table 3. Research Propositions Derived from the Conceptual Framework.

Proposition	Statement
P1	IBM configurations that integrate market linkages, technical services, and financing into a cohesive value proposition will demonstrate significantly higher adoption of sustainability than single-dimension technology transfer models.
P2	Bhutan’s state-coordinated institutional environment will enable cooperative and social enterprise IBM configurations more effectively than Nepal’s fragmented donor-driven environment, where micro-enterprise models may show greater resilience due to market-orientation.
P3	Gender-inclusive IBMs that explicitly address women’s agency—including asset ownership, management participation, and income control—will achieve broader adoption depth among female-headed households and women’s groups.

Source: Authors.

5. Discussion

The value of this study lies in the proposition that the adoption of solar dryers should be reframed beyond the purely technical dimension, where standalone technology transfers have repeatedly failed owing to unaddressed financial, operational, socio-cultural, gendered dimension, market barriers, and into the domain of business models and institutional design. This proposed model addresses a critical gap in the bottom of the pyramid and technology adoption literature, where Himalayan contexts exacerbate market failures and institutional voids that conventional paradigms overlook. The implications are highly significant in redefining theories of innovation diffusion, and inclusive business models and highly relevant for the practitioners, implementer and development agencies for the sustainable adoption of technology.

5.1. Theoretical Implications

From the perspective of IBM theory, this study argues that the high-altitude mountain environment provides theoretically unique conditions that have been insufficiently addressed in the extant BoP and IBM literature (Dembek et al., 2018). Geographic inaccessibility intensify market failures and service delivery costs (Pillai et al., 2024); climate-related vulnerabilities create nonlinear production systems that strain conventional business model paradigms (Dembek et al., 2018); and the diversity of institutions in the Nepal-Bhutan context offers natural experiments for IBM research that remain underexploited (Welter et al., 2018). Specifically, the integration of environmental moderators, including snowfall and rainfall seasonality, altitudinal gradients, and variable solar irradiance, into the IBM framework extends existing BoP theory by demonstrating that geographic and climate conditions are not merely contextual background, but active structural determinants of which IBM configurations can achieve viability.

From the lens of technology adoption theory, the proposed model extends Rogers’ innovation diffusion model by incorporating business model architecture as a critical structural driver of adoption sustainability rather than treating inclusive business models merely as delivery vehicles for technologies. This addresses a key theoretical gap, prioritizing how integrated IBM configurations overcome multidimensional barriers that undermine discrete technology transfers (Salvador et al., 2025; Santos, 2012) to advance contextualized entrepreneurship studies.

5.2. Practical Implications

For practitioners, policymakers and governments, this framework offers a diagnostic tool to identify the most viable business model configuration by assessing the interplay of institutional contexts and community characteristics (Abreu & Grinevich, 2024, p. 23; Manocha & Kiefer, 2025, p. 14; Vorley et al., 2009). For the entrepreneurship ecosystems of Nepal and Bhutan, this research has revealed a replicable typology of IBM configurations for the adoption of improved solar dryers, in which Agri processing startups, social enterprises and cooperatives can adapt to foster inclusive growth (Le et al., 2024; Tortia & Borzaga, 2021).

For Nepal, where institutional voids and fragmented donor interventions have historically undermined technology adoption, the micro enterprise model offers a resilient entry point that requires minimal institutional coordination while still delivering livelihood benefits. Policymakers should focus on creating enabling conditions such as access to microfinance (alternative finance provider), technical deployment, and market information rather than attempting top-down deployment. For Bhutan, the GNH-aligned governance framework creates favorable conditions for cooperative and social enterprise models, and the government can leverage its integrated five-year plans to institutionalize solar drying support services within existing agricultural extension programs.

5.3. Limitations

Several limitations should be noted here. First, the model is based on a literature review and theoretically grounded synthesis rather than primarily empirical data; its assumption therefore remains to be tested and may require refinement upon empirical validation. Second, the geographic focus on Nepal and Bhutan, while theoretically motivated, limits the immediate transferability of findings to other high-altitude regions or BoP contexts without contextual adaptation. Third, the study does not address engineering performance metrics, technical efficiency or nutritional outcomes of solar drying, which may interact with business model viability in ways not fully captured by the framework. Fourth, gender dynamics and intersectionality are addressed at the conceptual level; future empirical work should engage directly with women farmers and agricultural coopeartive to validate the proposed gender-inclusive propositions.

5.4. Future Research Directions

Future research should prioritize the empirical validation of the three propositions advanced in this study through qualitative case studies and comparative analysis in Nepal and Bhutan. A multiple case study design using purposive sampling across contrasting IBM configurations would allow for rich contextual analysis of the condition under which each configuration achieves sustained adoption. In addition, longitudinal studies tracking adoption outcomes beyond initial project periods are needed to capture the postadoption dynamics that the literature has largely neglected. Furthermore, future research should extend the framework to other Himalayan settings and other climate-appropriate renewable technologies to assess generalizability. Moreover, gender-focused participatory action research with women farmers and cooperatives in both countries would deepen the understanding of the intersectional barriers and enablers of inclusive adoption.

6. Conclusions

This study establishes a conceptual foundation for empirical investigations into inclusive business models for solar dryer adoption in the Himalayas settings and makes three key contributions. First, this study offers a novel perspective moving beyond technical and technological imperatives to include inclusive business models and institutional dimensions for the sustainable adoption of solar dryers. It gathers literature related to solar drying technology, technology adoption, and inclusive business models, identifying the critical gap related to sustainable adoption and the moderating role of the institutional context in the high-altitude. Second, the study presents a three-level conceptual framework, macrolevel institutional context, meso-level IBM configurations, and microlevel adoption outcomes, and develops three hypotheses related to the differential effectiveness of producer-centric, community-centric, and enterprise-centric IBM configurations across opposing governance contexts. The detailed operationalization of variables (Section 4.3.1) provides a clear outline for empirical investigation. Third, the study creates the opportunity for comparative research using Nepal and Bhutan which leverages their institutional diversity as a natural experiment to deepen theorizing on contextual influences in entrepreneurship.

As the research process develops, the conceptual framework will be refined through inductive empirical investigation into the realities of the Himalayan small holder farmer, alternative finance provider, entrepreneur, and institutional context. The expected outcome is a typology of IBM configurations for improved solar dryer adoption that could be employed by development partners, entrepreneurs, practitioners, and policymakers in mountainous regions globally, contributing new knowledge at the nexus of sustainable entrepreneurship, renewable energy technology adoption, improving livelihood and mountain development.