Saravana Jaikumar

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad | IIM · Area of Marketing

We conducted a field experiment to gain marketing insights into low-income, subsistence consumers in emerging markets. We examined two phenomena– marketplace literacy which is knowledge and skills about the marketplace to overcome challenges with low income and relatively lower literacy, and membership in self-help groups that has empowered women a...

We examine a bottom‐up approach to consumer and marketing education for subsistence consumers, that is, those with low income and relatively lower literacy levels. They face a variety of cognitive and other constraints, with difficulty in abstract thinking being a central issue that is critical for effective decision‐making. We study the impact of...

Purpose Subsistence marketplace can be characterized as a marketplace with widespread cognitive and social vulnerabilities, due to low income and low literacy levels. This may result in retailers exploiting the consumers. The purpose of this research paper is to develop a holistic learning program to impart marketplace intelligence to overcome thes...

With increase in lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease in emerging economies, it is important to understand the impact of acquiring these health issues on household income and consumption. Using a panel data of Indian households, we show that acquiring diabetes, hypertension or heart disease results in increased medica...

In this paper, we assert the critical influence of education on health-beliefs among women from India, an emerging economy. We further examine the urban vs. rural differences and the role of social capital in shaping health-beliefs of women. Using nationally representative data of eligible women from India, we find education to have a positive infl...

Although extant literature has studied consumers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) extensively, there seem to be some lacunae in terms of a deeper understanding of the cognitive peculiarities of low-income consumers owing to their resource-lean environments and childhood uncertainties. In this paper, we attempt to address this gap by focusing on p...

Purpose The authors study the effect of access to smartphones on the socio-economic well-being in the case of rural base of the pyramid (BoP) women. While smartphone access may have its benefits, the paper suggests augmenting access with a sociotechnical intermediary (STI) that facilitates training and online community building to enhance the well-...

Base of the Pyramid (BoP) producers have limited opportunities to create and capture value due to various constraints, which keeps them trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty. The emerging literature on the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the poverty alleviation of BoP producers focuses on ICT-enabled solutions to valu...

We study the impact of marketplace literacy education on marketplace coping behaviors in the face of systemic shock due to demonetization, deriving important implications for consumer affairs from this radically distinct context. We study whether and how such education can have positive impact even in the face of such macro‐level disruption that di...

Using event study analysis on a sports team and parent firm in the Indian Premier League, we show that investors react adversely to: (1) unethical but legal activity that may have a positive impact on the firm’s value and (2) unethical and illegal activity that does not necessarily impact the day-to-day performance of the firm. We use the novel sam...

Purpose The purpose of this conceptual paper is to broaden the understanding of the three negative member (bad apple) behaviors – withholding of effort, interpersonal deviance and negative affect – put forth by Felps et al. (2006). Design/methodology/approach An integrative review of extant literature was conducted to understand the impact of th...

Conspicuous consumption may be explained by the need to signal higher social status in a society. However, whether this consumption actually translates to improved perception of well-being remains unexamined. In the emerging economy context, we argue that conspicuous consumption may play the role of elevating one's own perception of economic well-b...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to evaluate the economic value of celebrity endorsements to Indian firms based on their branding strategy – corporate or house-of-brands – and their “congruence” or “fit” with the celebrity. The overall economic value of endorsements to firms in India, a moderately collectivist culture, is also assessed. Desi...

The impact of income inequality on conspicuous consumption has been a topic of much discussion, but little empirical examination in the emerging market context. In this paper, using data from the India Human Development Survey (2004-2005) and employing simple regression framework, we examine the effect of income inequality on conspicuous consumptio...