Understanding subsistence marketplaces: Toward sustainable consumption and commerce for a better world

This article provides the background and the events leading up to this special issue, and the composition of articles that follow. This special issue includes articles that take a bottom-up approach in understanding and explaining subsistence marketplaces, focusing on individual, communal, and cultural factors that influence consumers and entrepreneurs who live at or near subsistence, and who comprise a majority of the world's population. This bottom-up focus is distinct and complementary to the macro-level economic development and mid-level business strategy (e.g., base of the pyramid) approaches to the role of business in poverty alleviation. This special issue consists largely of papers based on presentations at the second subsistence marketplace conference held in Chicago in 2008, with articles and essays reflecting a healthy commingling of disciplinary perspectives that cuts across social and commercial enterprises.     

Strategic motivations and choice in subsistence markets

This paper examines the different motivations behind strategic choice in base of the pyramid or subsistence markets. Two strategies are examined through comparative analysis: market extension and strategic intent. Using two commercial bank's micro-lending business strategies in Sri Lanka, a comparative case study suggests that strategic intent is motivated by building capabilities over time that results in successful poverty alleviation, whereas market expansion is motivated by an immediate desire to expand overall sales revenue. This conclusion may help reframe subsistence market or BoP arguments away from such false choices as appropriate size (e.g., multinational corporations versus small and medium size enterprises) toward more useful discussion on understanding why firms participate in subsistence markets and what is the motivation behind their strategic choice. By considering more than just size and scope and studying the motivations behind long-term solutions to poverty alleviation, firm success can be better understood and achieved.     

A naturological approach to marketing exchanges: Implications for the bottom of the pyramid

Marketing as exchange has been the sine qua non of the field for over thirty years. While buyer-seller dyads dominate traditional conversations, other forms of transactions are included as long as value transfer occurs. The most logical extension is Stakeholder Theory, an approach with the same basic structure for understanding, maintaining, and advancing important relationships among firms and their constituencies. Together, they posit that self-contained individuals or units have a marked impact on one another, which passes across defined boundaries at discrete periods of time. Yet the failure to capture organic and dynamic ways in which such entities interact necessities a new approach, such as the naturological perspective that recognizes porous boundaries and reverberating consequences of marketing exchanges, especially among consumers and other impacted parties who survive at or near the proverbial bottom of the economic pyramid.     

Creating mutual value: Lessons learned from ventures serving base of the pyramid producers

The base of the pyramid (BoP) literature is grounded in the proposition of mutual value creation, an important but not yet well-tested relationship between business development and poverty alleviation. This paper begins to address this gap by assessing how business ventures serving BoP producers address local constraints and create mutual value. Using a case study methodology, sixty-four ventures are analyzed to identify the constraints faced by BoP producers. These are classified into productivity and transactional constraints. While the former set of constraints inhibits local value creation, the latter severely diminish the value capture potential of BoP producers. An in-depth analysis of eleven agricultural ventures provides insight into the strategies that ventures use to address constraints and enhance value creation and capture by BoP producers. The findings also indicate that alleviating constraints creates value not only for local producers, but also for the ventures themselves.     

Value chain integration of base of the pyramid consumers: An empirical study of drivers and performance outcomes

The seminal works on Base of the Pyramid (BOP) markets encourage companies to explore untapped low-income markets and to alleviate poverty by providing affordable products and services. The transition to second generation BOP strategies has centred on the integration of local consumers across value chain activities. This integration presents challenges both for firms and for low-income consumers due to the nature of informal BOP markets, severe institutional voids and lack of local knowledge of firms. In this context, little is known about the motivational drivers of firms to integrate BOP consumers in value creation activities and the impact on different performance dimensions, namely economic, social and ecological. This study adopts the perspective of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and investigates drivers and performance outcomes of BOP consumer integration. For this purpose, we develop a theoretical framework and test it empirically by employing a unique dataset of 142 enterprises which provide basic products and services to low-income markets. Our findings provide empirical support for the claim that BOP consumer integration enhances economic, social and ecological performance. MSMEs in our sample engage consumers mainly due to a strong intrinsic motivation to drive social impact rather than a pragmatic motivation to overcome information asymmetries. While studies of multinationals entering BOP markets almost exclusively report the need for cross-sector partner collaboration, our findings suggest that this may not be the case for MSMEs.     

Entrepreneurial narrative and a science of the imagination

This article is an introduction to a special issue on entrepreneurial narrative that provides theoretical and empirical links between scholarship in narrative and entrepreneurship as well as demonstrates how theories and methods in narrative may be applied to the study of entrepreneurship as a phenomenon. A conjecture that narrative perspectives might lead to a “science of the imagination” is offered.     

Making theory and practice in subsistence markets: An analytic autoethnography of MASAZI in Accra, Ghana

This paper responds to the need for greater research in subsistence markets that engage new and innovative approaches to scholarship, in particular those that involve initiatives based on interactions between scholars and communities. On the basis of an analytic autoethnography conducted at a social venture in Accra, Ghana, the author empirically explores third space, or third space at work. Third space is defined as a momentary space between one's day-to-day world and other worlds. Building on recent literature that argues for a conception of third space that is less temporary and that allows one to be both here and there, this study uses blending, resistance, and negotiation to demonstrate the on-going making of theory and practice. The study also reveals that third space at work may occur on a continuum of in-betweenness and may be shared. The findings are relevant to scholars, practitioners, and global citizens.     

The opportunity not taken: The occupational identity of entrepreneurs in contexts of poverty

Innovative entrepreneurship is an essential but often missing outcome of poverty alleviation efforts. This qualitative study set in rural Ghana explores the occupational identity of entrepreneurs, the institutions that shape it in isolated “island networks”, and how it influences entrepreneurs' practices and decisions. We find that the institutional forces of “collectivism” and “fatalism” feature prominently. Being an entrepreneur in such settings means being a mentor, market link, and community safety net, and the types of opportunities entrepreneurs pursue are largely seen as pre-destined and inherited rather than individually chosen. As a result, the pursuit of innovative opportunities may be significantly limited.     

Microfinance ecosystem: How connectors,interactors, and institutionalizers co-create value

Since the mid-1990s, the number of microfinance institutions (MFIs) has grown tremendously, with more than 10,000 worldwide varying in size and approach. Despite this growth, however, the value of MFIs has been hotly debated. Managers and founders of MFIs have also faced the challenge of balancing social and financial objectives and understanding effective ways of evaluating their organization’s effectiveness. In this article, we closely examine the operations of three distinct types of MFIs and offer a framework of how they collectively create value, with each playing a unique role in a symbiotic relationship: Namaste, an interactor; Kiva, a connector; and Accion, an institutionalizer. Interactors build relationships with clients and facilitate the flow of information to connectors and institutionalizers that disseminate this data to capital markets, build confidence, and fuel capital flow into the MF industry. Institutionalizers disseminate innovation and best practices. Thus, it is critical that each MFI recognizes its symbiotic role and evaluates itself accordingly instead of spreading itself across roles.     

博物馆化的想象--锡拉史前博物馆的展览语境的构建

本文以圣托里尼岛上的锡拉史前博物馆为例,试图分析在博物馆展览中历史性展览语境的构建。     

包容性增长:基于相对贫困视角下的探析

包容性增长致力于解决相对贫困的三个维度,即收入不平等、人的发展和人的脆弱性问题,与此相对应,包容性增长的内涵也可概括为可持续的与平等的增长、社会包容和赋予权能及安全。包容性增长在中国实现的三个关键因素是,坚持公有制的主体地位,不断完善市场机制,坚持以人为本。第一,坚持公有制的主体地位,实行初次分配改革,提高劳动报酬在初次分配中的比重;第二,完善社会主义市场经济体制,使国民待遇逐步趋同;第三,以人本发展观取代物本发展观,加强发展中对人的关注,提高人的发展水平,保障人的安全。     

改革开放以来中国意识形态创新研究的综观与前瞻

国内学术界理清了改革开放以来中国意识形态创新领域许多重要而有意义的问题,如中国意识形态创新的主要历程、基本动因、现实效果、重要启示等,但也存在若干不足之处：对新旧意识形态之间的逻辑衔接问题关注不够;对意识形态创新存在的内在缺陷缺乏清醒认识;对意识形态创新研究缺乏整体思维与多元视角;对意识形态创新研究缺乏国际视野和世界眼光;对未来进行意识形态创新缺乏明确的方向导引。今后中国意识形态创新研究应在既有研究基础上,以更宏阔的国际视野切入,重点关注中国意识形态创新的系统性、存在的问题以及前进方向等。     

Kafkaesque institutions at the base of the pyramid

Impelled by neo-liberal ideology, base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) and subsistence market discourses have put emphases on markets, profits and entrepreneurialism. Because of this ideological mooring, there is a marginal understanding of the role of the State and its impact on the poor in these discourses. Franz Kafka’s work provides a critical perspective on the role of the State in BOP or subsistence settings. This ethnographic study in India examines transactions related to land and highlights the Kafkaesque nature of the State. The institutional setting is fraught with Kafkaesque elements such as inaccessible and indecipherable legality, abusive power relations and alienation of subaltern subjects. It further shows that the illicit character of the State is an important reason for illegal practices in subaltern settings.     

Inflation,currency exchange rates,and the international securities markets

A time-state-preference model of an efficient and complete international financial market is employed to investigate the conditions under which the international Fisher Effect will hold, and the forward currency exchange rate will be an unbiased estimate of the future spot rate. The presence of stochastic inflation within countries in the fiat-currency prices of real goods will destroy both relationships, even in the absence of any institutional imperfections or trading barriers. Similarly, expected inflation rate differentials across countries will not coincide with spot-versus-forward currency exchange rate differentials.     

抗日战争时期革命根据地审计监督及其对当代的启示

在抗日战争时期,革命根据地为了有效控制财政收支、查处贪污浪费等不良经济现象,在苏维埃审计基础上制定了一系列审计监督制度,从而使革命根据地的不良作风转入了良好的运行状态。对这一时期的审计监督进行回顾和思考,对于我国现行的审计监督建设具有积极的启示作用。