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Exchanges in Marketing Systems: The Case of Subsistence Consumer–Merchants in Chennai, India
Abstract
A qualitative study of subsistence consumer–merchants (SCMs) in Chennai, India, reveals that they sustain relationships in three interdependent relationship domains: vendor, customer, and family. Relying on long interview data, the authors interpret the subsystems as closed-loop and self-sustaining relationships. Subsystems are managed by SCMs through buying and selling activities alongside the receiving and granting of credit, and these activities engender three facets of commitment: continuance, affective, and normative. Different facets of commitment underlie the relationships in the three subsystems. Through different role-based activities, SCMs enhance or diminish commitment levels to keep all three types of relationships viable while moving their scarce time, energy, and financial resources into the domain with the greatest need. Activities and the management of commitment are performed within 24-hour business cycles, with negligible resources, and in highly unstable environments, providing valuable theoretical insights and managerial implications that guide recommendations for firms wanting to serve subsistence markets successfully.
... (a) thinking-based agency, which can be partially due to limited ability to read and write, (b) feeling-based agency, which is shaped by low and unstable income, uncertainty, and material deprivation; and (c) coping-based agency, which lowers self-esteem due to prolonged poor and stigmatized living conditions arising from economic insecurity and a lack of safety nets (Viswanathan et al., 2010). Dubois et al. (2016) noted that political parties' issue position (e.g., tax cut, abortion rule) does not persuade powerless and anxious voters. ...
... In a poverty-ridden environment, social embeddedness is often firm Viswanathan et al., 2010). Low-income voters often search for resources within their group to overcome their financial constraints by leveraging their social capital. ...
... Group Identity Social embeddedness or cohesiveness Viswanathan et al., 2010) Strong sense of social identity Collective decision to vote, which the group votes for (Enos, 2016;Gelman et al., 2010;Lupu, 2010;Munshi, 2019;Sutton, 2005) Social Class A strong relationship between voters' socio-economic class and vote choice (Gelman et al., 2010;Lupu, 2010) The poor voters select the political party with a similar social identity (Carnes & Lupu, 2016;Durante et al., 2017) Ethnicity Voting choice is based on the similarity of the caste/race/religion or ethnicity of the candidate and the voters (Enos, 2016;Gelman et al., 2010;Gerber et al., 2010;Still & Dusi, 2020) political machinery suffers from low perpetuation and the provision of public goods distribution is inefficient (Cruz et al., 2018). ...
This review article examines why and how low‐income voters decide to vote for a political candidate. 163 articles in the last 80 years (1944‐2023) have been identified through a systematic literature review. Thereafter, the fragmented literature has been organised using a fusion of 3W1H and TCCM (Theory, context, characteristics and method) frameworks to obtain a comprehensive overview of the low‐income voters’ behaviour. Accordingly, the study has explained the voting contexts of poor consumers. Besides, the fundamental theories and methods employed in this research domain have been identified. This study revealed three characteristics of ‘voting choice’ of low‐income consumers (group identity, communication characteristics, and political environment characteristics) that have been further classified under several sub‐themes. This review article pioneers to provide an integrated and organised analysis of the literature on the voting behaviour of low‐income consumers, highlighting critical research gaps in theories, contexts, methods and antecedents that future researchers can examine to extend the discourse in this realm.
... Subsequent application of this theory in inter-organizational exchange generated new insight in this context (cf. Ganesan et al., 2010;Gilliland & Bello, 2002;Viswanathan et al., 2010). Table 1 provides an overview of the three facets related to business-to-business exchange relationships. ...
... Normative commitment refers to a desire to maintain a relationship with a partner because it should, based a sense of obligation. With normative commitment, an exchange partner feels morally obligated, "duty bound"-honoring business and societal norms that support loyalty and punish termination of a relationship (Etzioni, 1988;Gruen et al., 2000;Viswanathan et al., 2010). Macneil (1978) suggests exchange occurs in a "minisociety with a vast array of norms beyond those centered on the exchange and its immediate processes" (p. ...
... Cater & Zabkar, 2009;Gruen et al., 2000;Kumar et al., 1994). Other studies find it can increase willingness to invest, foster co-production, and reduce conflict (Gruen et al., 2000;Viswanathan et al., 2010). Table 2 selectively summarizes extant research on commitment in business-to-business exchange, including research that is recent and/or highly cited. ...
Commitment is a core concept in the study of buyer-supplier relationships. Much of extant research on commitment in buyer-supplier relationships utilizes a global, unidimensional definition of commitment. In contrast, research on employees’ organizational commitment utilizes a three-facet model, separately considering continuance commitment, affective commitment, and normative commitment. A review of the literature suggests three gaps. First that multiple facets of commitment, particularly normative commitment have been relatively unexplored. Second, the vast majority of research examines a buyer’s commitment to a supplier and much less a supplier’s commitment to a buyer. Finally, commitment research in developing countries is limited. A three-facet model of commitment—with antecedents and outcomes of each—is developed. Data is collected from buyers and suppliers in Thailand, providing an in-built replication and two tests of each hypothesis. The results show support for the three-facet model and identify light and dark side outcomes from the different facets. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
... Lifestyle, sociocultural factors, consumption demands, and marketing influence BOP shoppers' purchases of popular commodities (Beard, 2008). BOP customers employ village stores, family members, and friends to mitigate psychological and economic risks due to the separation of information in BOP marketplaces (Viswanathan et al., 2010). Word of Mouth (WOM) is essential for brand management since consumers share their positive and negative experiences with a firm to show their uniqueness or social status (Lovett et al., 2013). ...
... A few channel partners discussed the "influence of village elders" in the word relevance graph for channel members, highlighting BOP customers' reliance on local social networks like village merchants, family, and friends when making purchase decisions. BOP customers typically do this to reduce their purchases' psychological and financial risks (Viswanathan et al., 2010). The good WOM and peer experience gives BOP consumers trust in the company, creating a community brand vibe. ...
The vast consumer market at the bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) segment offers a lucrative business proposition for organizations, but this terrain is challenging. One effective strategy to address this issue can be through a robust consumer-brand relationship by fostering a sense of brand gratitude among BOP customers. The study aims to investigate the phenomenon of brand gratitude among BOP customers in emerging markets, such as India. By using consumer embeddedness and market separation theory, this study determines the different factors that can lead subsistence market buyers to feel deeply grateful for brands. Through a comprehensive qualitative study, where marketing professionals working in BOP markets, rural retailers, and BOP customers were interviewed, the study developed a conceptual framework consisting of utilitarian, emotional, and symbolic values. These elements will help BOP customers appreciate the brand, leading to reciprocal behaviors like brand loyalty, repurchases, and advocacy. These outcomes are crucial for every company, especially those navigating the challenging BOP markets. A few studies offer techniques for organizations to establish strong consumer-brand relationships at BOP, and doing so with the goal of generating brand gratitude among this customer segment is uncommon. The current study examines the concept of brand gratitude at BOP, which has rarely been done before.
... During his time at Illinois, Kent Monroe established himself as the leading marketing scholar in the domain of behavioral pricing and also served as the editor of the Journal of Consumer Research (1990Research ( -1993. Likewise, Madhu Viswanathan pioneered the field of subsistence marketplaces (e.g., [33,34]) and also developed a successful non-governmental organization that enhances the market literacy of underprivileged individuals across several countries. Finally, Jag Sheth (who pioneered many aspects of our field during his long and illustrious career) served on the faculty of the University of Illinois from 1969 to 1984 and made important contributions to a variety of different domains, including buyer behavior [24], multivariate inquiry [25], and consumer word-of-mouth activity [26]. ...
This article tells the story of the past, present, and future of the marketing area at the University of Illinois with a focus on its contributions to the academic marketing community. These contributions include being at the forefront of formal marketing instruction, serving as a catalyst to the formation of the American Marketing Association (as well as its early home), and developing the most popular marketing course in the world. In addition to highlighting our contributions, we also share stories about some of Illinois’ most celebrated faculty, including Paul Converse, Robert Ferber and Jag Sheth. We then look at our current faculty and our three main collective research interests (i.e., global and multicultural marketing, digital marketing, and innovation and new product development). Finally, we provide a preview of where marketing at Illinois is headed in the future.
... With the high level of cultural and linguistic heterogeneity in Africa (for example, Gershman & Rivera, 2016), the meaning and sensitivity of specific items and questions depend on local cultures and traditions (Bulmer & Warwick, 1983). In this respect, embeddedness in African cultures has resulted in increased network relationships which may cause groupserving biases during data collection (for example, Goncalo & Duguid, 2008;Viswanathan et al., 2010). As the meaning and sensitivity of items may vary between groups, insights might be required into the cultural backgrounds of potential respondents in designing research instruments (Ingenbleek et al., 2013). ...
This article presents a systematic review of strategy research inAfrica. The quantity of management research in general andstrategy research in particular is growing on the continent,though from a low level. It is, however, characterized by a strongfocus on South Africa and Ghana, hence not reflecting thecultural and economic diversity of the continent in detail. Thisreview consists of 161 articles. The review found that research onstrategy-performance relationship dominates the field. Thecultural context and how it may influence strategy and strategy-making is still not well addressed. The article ends by suggestingfuture research directions based on the identified gaps.
... As multinational organizations look up to emerging markets for new sources of growth, they discover that their fates are in many ways intertwined with the fate of millions of small firms and entrepreneurs on whom they have to rely on as customers, suppliers, and distributors (Viswanathan et al. 2010, Prahalad 2005. ...
The study examines the impact of entrepreneurial skills on the financial performance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Kaduna State. The data of the study was collected from 250 SMEs in Kaduna State using a structured questionnaire. Three hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings of the study revealed that accounting skills, finance skills, and marketing skills are significantly and positively related to the financial performance of SMEs in Kaduna State. Based on the findings of the study, the study concludes that accounting skills, finance skills, and marketing skills play a vital role in the changes of financial performance of SMEs in Kaduna State. Based on the conclusion of the study, the study recommends among others that SME owners should employ accounting software for keeping records of their business transactions. In addition, the Kaduna State government should organize seminars and workshops to sensitize SMEs on how to source external finance to improve the financial performance of their businesses. Additionally, the state government should encourage SMEs to owners fully adopt online marketing as this will increase their volume of sales as well as their business turnover. Introduction Entrepreneurs establish business entities with the expectation of reaching the promised land. However, such businesses have a high mortality rate as a result of inadequate entrepreneurial skills. Since businesses are profit-oriented organizations, their success depends on their sound financial performance. Several factors such as accounting, finance, and marketing skills possessed by the entrepreneurs affect the financial performance of their businesses.
... Thus, interviews are not always a transparent and honest process fully oriented towards the larger objective of the development of science (Alvesson & Lee Ashcraft, 2012). Tackling the problems of felt vulnerability in the reflexive process of interviewing is the hallmark of subsistence settings (Viswanathan et al., 2010) and that which we explore in this research. ...
A growing body of literature is focused on subsistence markets and how marketing interventions can increase well‐being for those whose daily existence is a struggle to ensure access to necessities of life. To understand the lifeworld of those living at the subsistence level, interviews are favored as a data collection tool. This methodological paper examines interviewing in the subsistence context with a focus on women whose lived experiences are affected by the intersection of gender, power imbalance, and culture. The study context is India. Specifically, we draw upon data from three previous author‐conducted academic studies and conduct a reflective analysis that leads to a series of reflections and recommendations for the interview process. This paper calls for more work to be done in the area and raises the need for a new research paradigm rather than reliance on western‐oriented approaches that may not fit the context. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... In the last few decades, some studies have explored subsistence marketplaces in various contexts such as entrepreneurship in subsistence markets (Christensen, Parsons and Fairbourne 2010;Sridharan and Viswanathan 2008;Viswanathan et al. 2010b;Viswanathan et al. 2014), tourism in subsistence markets (Mai et al. 2014), consumer-merchant (Viswanathan, Rosa and Ruth 2010a;Upadhyaya et al. 2014), and poverty alleviation in subsistence markets (Crawford-Mathis, Darr and Farmer 2010). In light of increasing incomes in developing countries and the rapid development of technology, Viswanathan and Rosa (2010) discuss the need for a more profound understanding of subsistence marketplaces and their constituents among management scholars and practitioners. ...
Researchers in the marketing domain have investigated some key drivers of market development in subsistence marketplaces in emerging economies. This article contributes to the literature by proposing a 7A framework that identifies an enhanced set of drivers of market development in subsistence marketplaces in emerging markets (EMs) (by extending the 4A framework). Using qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with farmers (i.e., micro-entrepreneurs) in subsistence marketplaces from two EMs (countries: India, Vietnam), the study findings provide evidence of the 7A's as facilitators and/or inhibitors of market development in such markets. This article draws attention to the growing importance of the selling processes and strategies used by farmers in such markets for maintaining relationships with customers and investigates the benefits and challenges of selling at farmers’ markets that contribute to developing the 7A framework. The study uniquely contributes to the base of pyramid (BoP) literature in emerging markets, which could be of interest to future researchers examining the effectiveness of the 7A marketing framework on micro-entrepreneurs. The study findings offer important insights into policy and practice by uncovering new dimensions of market development for micro-entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
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 around the world. We studied how these factors influence strategies for managing product quantities essential for day-to-day survival in contexts with resource constraints. In a prospective design, low-income women were randomly assigned to self-help groups and marketplace literacy education, with pre- and post-measurement. Our findings suggest that, whereas self-help group membership and marketplace literacy help women in low-income households improve their strategies to manage product quantities, the interaction of these two variables leads to counterintuitive outcomes. Our findings provide a nuanced understanding of how consumer and marketing insights can empower consumers in resource-constrained settings to become more effective.
Marketing research targeting poor consumers has been developing recently. The specific characteristics of these consumers make it difficult to conduct empirical research. This difficulty has raised the question of how to adapt the methods and techniques usually used in marketing. This article provides a multidisciplinary review of the difficulties encountered in addressing people living in poverty and enables researchers to assess this population and anticipate their needs. In addition, based on a literature review of the methods used in 83 empirical marketing studies published between 1990 and 2021, our study provides researchers with a vade-mecum to guide them in their choice of research design. Concrete and detailed recommendations are provided to facilitate their involvement in the field of poor consumers.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative perspective to the article on consumer vulnerability recently published in this journal by Russell-Bennett et al. (2024).
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is collegial but firm in its analysis of their discussion about how vulnerable consumers feel and react, as offered without appropriate review and details from previous research.
Findings
The perspective given by the authors is found to lack sufficient substance and foundation in the consumer vulnerability literature across several leading journals in the field. Alternative interpretations are presented and articulated.
Originality/value
All ideas expressed as a counter to their arguments come from decades of experiences working with vulnerable peoples across multiple contexts and communities.
Gender equality and social impact are gaining significant research attention in marketing. This paper investigates the impact of recruiting rural women microentrepreneurs on acquiring consumers and delivering value to them. We study the outcomes from a quasi-experiment in which a social enterprise recruited a group of women to become microentrepreneurs in 91 out of 164 locations (panchayats) across rural districts in India. We show that the rural locations with more women than men microentrepreneurs experienced a 40.8% increase in consumer acquisition and delivered 64.1% greater value to their consumers. Moreover, these locations with more women than men microentrepreneurs delivered 25,100 more value to their consumers than men microentrepreneurs working in predominantly male-work environments. This research contributes to the intersection of marketing, social entrepreneurship, and gender dynamics, underscoring the importance of empowering women for better marketing and societal outcomes.
The article brings out the major factors that bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) retailers consider when adopting brands. It suggests that, besides the known variables of profitability, relationship and merchandise, these retailers attach importance to efforts that lead to reduced perceived risk. These include replacement and buyback facilities besides credit. They define the relationship with distributors/wholesalers not just as firm-firm business-based, but also as stemming from familial, social and ethnic dimensions. Based on 472 responses of acceptance or rejection from BoP retailers from rural India, the findings show a positive, significant relationship with brand characteristics. On the other hand, product-related factors showed a significant but negative relationship. The study found a significant but negative association between distributor relationship and probability of adoption, which should be considered in conjunction with credit, replacement and buyback facilities. The authors suggest that, while brand demand is a significant factor, strategies based on service-dominant logic would be more effective in sustained adoption of brands among small retailers.
India’s retailing sector is expected to remain in a transition spiral for the foreseeable future. Because of India’s unique context – in terms of history, regulation, institutions, demographics, geography, and traditions – there is limited applicability of the available theories of retail evolution to the retail situation in India. Drawing from the literature as well as from empirical research and practical experiences of over a decade, this paper presents a conceptual frame for understanding the retail sector of India and the likely future trajectory of this sector.
This research enriches the field’s perspective on value and argues that to seriously address inequality during the next 50 years, consumer research must explore processual aspects of value hierarchy and consider its relationship to inequality. Doing so recognizes the duality of structures as embodying outcomes and agency, as well as the need to view value not only as what it is but also as what it does. To begin to address limitations in the literature, we use empirical evidence from an investigation of the cancer care market from 1970 to 2021 to understand how value hierarchy shapes and manifests as inequality. This is conceptualized as: distribution of multilevel resources, consolidation of consumer power, stratification of consumer agency, and (de)credentialization of worthiness. Building on each of these, we discuss a research agenda for future JCR inquiries and introduce “value hierarchy as inequality” as a big-tent issue for consumer research.
App-based mobile financial services have increasingly been deployed in recent years to strengthen market inclusion among subsistence micro-enterprises. Yet despite such advancements, there has yet to be any examination of the multidimensional engagement of app-based mobile financial services engagement, including its enabler, mediator and moderators, on the value chain within low-income contexts. To address this gap, this study used a dyadic sample of 253 subsistence micro-enterprises and found that the individual-level absorptive capacity of subsistence micro-suppliers effect their engagement with app-based mobile financial services, which in turn impacts on micro-retailer perceived B2B relationship satisfaction. The findings also show that relationship (vs transactional) focused marketing strategy and app functionality (vs aesthetics) strengthen B2B customer engagement. These are timely insights for policy makers and marketing practitioners on how to optimize user engagement with technology-enabled service innovations offered by formal market stakeholders and enhance the efficiency of value chains.
Purpose
Given the continuing need to study service marketing adaptations that emerged in the wake of Covid-19, this paper aims to look at the formation and evolution of purchase groups (PGs) that arose in Indian gated communities during the pandemic and have continued functioning in the post-pandemic marketplace. Not only did these groups act as much-needed interstitial markets during a time of significant external disruption, but they also served as sites of value co-creation, with consumers collaborating with each other and with service providers.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a phenomenological research approach, the authors conducted 22 in-depth interviews with Indian consumers and small service providers to gather accounts of how PGs started and evolved with time. Subsequent data coding and analyses are conducted with NVivo 12.
Findings
Using the service ecosystem perspective, the authors illustrate seven distinct themes that capture the nuances of the formation and evolution of PGs. These consist of entrepreneurality, collectivity, and fluidity at the service ecosystem level, hybridity and transactionality at the servicescape level, and mutuality and permeability at the service encounter level.
Originality/value
This study provides an empirical and theoretically grounded account of a long-term service marketing adaptation that has persisted in the post-pandemic marketplace. This helps us address recent calls for such research while also adding to the work on value co-creation in collective consumption contexts and extant discourse on service ecosystems.
The objective of increasing productivity and therefore the wealth created by beekeeping SMEs remains at the heart of the debates. The aim of this paper is to analyze integration into global value chains on the economic performance of beekeeping SMEs, used data collected on a snowball and matched sample of 105 integrated beekeeping SMEs. At the end of the analyses, the student's t test, generally significant at the 1% threshold, shows that a beekeeping SME would gain an average Net Income of (1199155.43 ± 369430.96 FCFA/ha) when it integrates in the international market. Thus, an active beekeeping man-day would earn remuneration of (8327.46825 ± 2565.49278 FCFA/Man-Day) when the beekeeping SME participates in the international market, much higher than what a man-day would earn when the SME participates in the market regional (5248.50503 ± 821.143995 FCFA/Man-Day) and the national market (4399.41 ± 1003.58 FCFA/Man-Day). Finally, from the apparently independent regression (SURE), it appears that the variables, use of a digital IEC platform; the certification of the cash crop, the cooperative organization and the level of education have a positive and significant influence on the economic performance of beekeeping SMEs.
We present a bottom-up marketing approach as a pathway to addressing the grand challenge of poverty and inequality for the marketing discipline. We derive this approach from the research stream on radically different contexts of subsistence marketplaces. Research on subsistence marketplaces has typically explored micro-level phenomena but also traversed upward and explained aggregate phenomena at higher levels. We present a conceptual framework to encapsulate general and granular elements of the bottom-up marketing approach. Study 1 demonstrates general elements of the framework through a retrospective examination of the global diffusion of a marketplace literacy program. Study 2 demonstrates the more granular elements of the framework through a qualitative analysis of five case studies of social enterprise start-ups. Though presenting a complementary counter-perspective to conventional thinking, we embed the process of interweaving the bottom-up with the macro level to present an actionable approach. We conclude with insights for marketing research and practice.
Emerging markets are a growing force, and the resulting increase in wealth—especially among the middle class—promotes conspicuous consumption with potentially negative impacts for societal and environmental well-being. Efforts to encourage ethical consumer behavior in emerging markets often meet various forms of consumer resistance. One reason that ethical consumption may suffer in emerging markets is because consumers have difficulty considering ethical other-focused attributes, such as Fair Trade or eco-friendly options, especially if those attributes do not directly benefit the self. Our research demonstrates a simple way to encourage more ethical consumption in emerging markets, without economic incentives. In particular, when consumers see narrow (vs. broad) product categories, they are more likely to incorporate both salient (self-focused) and non-salient (other-focused) attributes into their decision. Thus, narrow product categories encourage consumers to consider ethical attributes to a greater extent than they normally would. This finding holds in private settings, across various product categories (i.e., coffee, tea, juice) and contexts (i.e., online and in the field), and in different emerging markets (e.g., India, South Africa, and Iran).
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis which has witnessed consumers experiencing significant anxiety provoked by the threats to their health and even lives. Meanwhile, consumers have been observed to make more ethical purchases since the start of the pandemic. Drawing on literature on terror management and negotiable fate, this research employs a moderated moderating model to investigate how consumers’ perception of the pandemic severity leads to ethical consumption as a defensive mechanism against death-related anxiety, as well as the differential role of consumers’ belief in negotiable fate in moderating this pandemic impact across tight and loose cultures. We conducted two cross-cultural studies with 592 and 423 respondents, respectively, at different times during the pandemic. Results consistently show that perceived pandemic severity increases consumers’ intention to consume ethically. Consumers’ belief in negotiable fate directly enhances ethical consumption, but it alleviates the effect of pandemic severity on ethical consumption among consumers who live in a tight culture. Our findings reveal the existential meaning of ethical consumption as a buffer against pandemic-triggered mortality salience, identify the positive psychological functions of negotiable fate in promoting ethical consumption but mitigating consumers’ need to buffer death-related concerns, and advances the importance of investigating the cultural variances in the terror management process toward ethical consumption. The findings offer insights for marketers and policy makers to develop effective strategies to support consumers’ ethical coping during societal crises.
Marketing research on poor consumers has developed recently. The specific characteristics of these consumers make it difficult to conduct empirical research. This raises the question of how to adapt the methods and techniques usually used in marketing. This article provides a multidisciplinary review of the difficulties encountered in the field of poverty, enabling researchers to assess and anticipate them. In addition, based on a literature review of the methods used in 83 empirical marketing studies published between 1990 and 2021, it provides researchers with a vade-mecum to guide them in their choice of research design. Concrete and detailed recommendations are made to facilitate their involvement in the field of poor consumers.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought forth many restrictions and changes in the lifestyle of people across the globe. There was a need for social distancing and contactless exchanges, which accelerated the uptake of services such as digital payment platforms (DPP). In this study, we examine how the adoption of these DPPs was accelerated during the pandemic. Our focus is subsistence entrepreneurs (SEs) who suffer double jeopardy of resource scarcity as well as institutional voids that hinder their technology adoption. We use the exploratory approach to delve into this under-studied area in IS research using constructivist grounded theory. Using data from the in-depth interviews of these subsistence entrepreneurs, we develop a framework of a process that entails not only adoption and persistent use but also the mechanisms for the spread of this technology amongst a section of society that is characterized by poverty, illiteracy, and socio-economic barriers.
We study the impact of firm-specific business disruptions on the performance of small emerging market firms and test the effectiveness of building in redundancies to buffer against disruptions. Managerial disruptions result in the absence of the entrepreneur-owner, whereas operational disruptions lead to a shortage of critical resources, for example, inventory or electricity. We propose the use of relational redundancy—that is, the availability of a trusted and capable person with whom the entrepreneur-owner has an existing relationship, who can manage the business in his or her absence—to recover from managerial disruptions. We also examine whether resource redundancy—for example, maintaining safety stock or electricity backup—helps recover from operational disruptions. In the absence of publicly available data, we hand-built a panel data set by interviewing 646 randomly selected small firms over four time periods in Kampala, Uganda. We find that disruptions are highly prevalent and have a statistically and economically significant effect on firm performance. When a firm faces multiple exogenous and severe disruptions in a six-month period, its monthly sales decrease by 13.8% (p = 0.013), and its sales growth decreases by 18.8 percentage points (p = 0.070). Importantly, we find that both managerial and resource redundancies can help firms build resilience against the negative impact of disruptions. In some cases, firms with high levels of redundancy are able to completely overcome the negative effect of disruptions on sales and sales growth. We discuss implications for entrepreneurs, policymakers, and large multinationals that buy from or sell to small emerging market firms.
This paper was accepted by Charles Corbett, operations management.
Funding: This research was supported by grants from: Deloitte Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (DIIE), the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Faculty Scholar award, London Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED), and STARS Foundation.
Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4978 .
We investigate the adoption of cashless payment systems by small retailers and their upstream suppliers (wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers) serving the bottom-of-the-pyramid customers in India. We use the Technology-Organization-Environment framework to hypothesize how relative advantage, perceived barriers, firm size, firm scope, and competition influence the adoption of cashless payment systems. We collected data from 392 small retailers and 269 upstream suppliers from urban, semi-urban, and rural India. The results indicate that perceived barriers, firm scope, firm size, and competition influence the adoption of cashless payment systems. Upon further investigation, we found that all five factors influence retailers’ adoption of cashless payment systems, but only firm scope and competition are significantly related to adoption for upstream suppliers. These results highlight that the factors influencing the adoption of cashless payment systems may also depend on supply chain position. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results. We also validate the findings from our quantitative analysis by presenting excerpts from interviews with the merchants.
This article investigates the effect of reference group comparison on compensatory consumption for bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) consumers. While existing research reveals a relationship between upward social comparisons and compensatory consumption, there has been minimal focus on how BOP consumers react to such comparisons. By conducting multiple studies targeting low-income but educated employees of different organizations, this research demonstrates that BOP consumers engage in conspicuous consumption behavior; in particular, they prefer conspicuous material goods when undergoing reference group comparisons (both upward and downward), which is a marked contrast from their more affluent peers and the western population. Furthermore, while incidental envy explains the underlying mechanism of the relationship between upward reference group comparison and conspicuous material consumption, anxiety is the mediator between downward reference group comparison and conspicuous material consumption for BOP consumers. Overall, this research significantly contributes to the BOP and compensatory consumption literature and has managerial implications for marketers serving BOP markets.
Purpose
The socioeconomically deprived segment called bottom of pyramid lives in extreme resource-constrained environments and is being excluded from having access to many services. This study aims to investigate the role played by virtual engagement platforms in bringing well-being to base of the pyramid (BoP) customers. This study also uses transformative service research and service ecosystem-based approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses qualitative approach. Data was collected and analyzed through 16 in-depth interviews with BoP service actors.
Findings
Present study explains the role played by virtual engagement platforms as an intermediator between farmers and the service entity. Herein, it may be noted that the role of virtual platforms contributes to the well-being of the BoP community.
Originality/value
The authors’ research work broadens service organizations’ reach by better serving people in the BoP, which ultimately helps in removing unfairness and establishes service inclusion.
The objective of this study is to review and synthesize entrepreneurship in the context of the bottom/base of pyramid (BoP). The concept of the BoP approach, which describes the possibility of profitably in both serving the poor and alleviating poverty, has iterated from 1.0 to 3.0 since 2002. It has transformed from engaging the poor as “customers” (BoP 1.0) to engaging them as “producers” (BoP 3.0). However, although the poor in BoP markets perform as active, central focal actors to identify and create entrepreneurial opportunities, inadequate attention has been paid to the question of how to engage the poor as entrepreneurs. Understanding this question is critical because entrepreneurship has been regarded as an effective tool to relieve poverty. Therefore, this research focuses on three specific questions: (1) What are the characteristics of entrepreneurs in the BoP market? (2) What are the contents of their entrepreneurial activities? and (3) What are the consequences? To answer these questions, this paper conducted a systematic literature review of 56 studies on entrepreneurship at the BoP in the scientific database Web of Science by using PRISMA to guide the review process. From the findings of the three research questions, the study also further identifies four types of entrepreneurs at the BoP (i.e., survival entrepreneurs, community entrepreneurs, professional entrepreneurs, and full entrepreneurs). With a discussion on future directions for these four types of entrepreneurs, this review highlights the heterogenous roles of the poor at the BoP and their challenges to create wealth, which is beneficial for directing the focuses of this topic.
This research challenges the entrenched belief that financial vulnerability only affects low-income consumers. Instead, most consumers, across the socioeconomic spectrum, experience varying degrees of financial vulnerability at different points during their lives, whether sporadically or chronically; vulnerability is dynamic and heterogeneous. The authors propose a novel, theory-driven definition of consumer financial vulnerability (CFV), as the risk of incurring future harm, given the consumer’s current access to various financial resources. A new conceptual framework decouples “vulnerability” from “harm,” to distinguish the state of CFV, its determinants (access to various, interdependent financial resources), and the constructs it foreshadows (multiple, interconnected forms of realized harm). Five research propositions follow: (1) financial resource volatility plays a vital role in CFV; (2) recovering from harm requires more financial resources than preventing harm (3) a multiperiod lens is needed to assess CFV accurately; (4) greater financial resource access can increase CFV; and (5) generalized financial literacy is not a panacea for mitigating CFV. The propositions and their implications for marketing strategy, public policy, and consumer well-being offer a rich research agenda. The authors propose a measure of CFV—the probability that financial resources are insufficient to meet or exceed a harm threshold—for future empirical investigations.
A great deal of research has investigated how various aspects of ethnic identity influence consumer behavior, yet this literature is fragmented. The objective of this paper is to present an integrative theoretical model of how individuals are motivated to think and act in a manner consistent with their salient ethnic identities. The model emerges from a review of social science and consumer research about U.S. Hispanics, but researchers could apply it in its general form and/or adapt it to other populations. Our model extends Oyserman's (2009) identity‐based motivation (IBM) model by differentiating between two types of antecedents of ethnic identity salience: longitudinal cultural processes and situational activation by contextual cues, each with different implications for the availability and accessibility of ethnic cultural knowledge. We provide new insights by introducing three ethnic identity motives that are unique to ethnic (non‐majority) cultural groups: belonging, distinctiveness, and defense. These three motives are in constant tension with one another and guide longitudinal processes like acculturation, and ultimately influence consumers’ procedural readiness and action readiness. Our integrative framework organizes and offers insights into the current body of Hispanic consumer research, and highlights gaps in the literature that present opportunities for future research.
The pursuit of the common good is an important endeavor in business and marketing. The benefits of this to society are reflected in the increasing number of journal special issues dedicated to common good–related research and the recent observation that the marketing discipline is supportive of business research as a catalyst for positive change. Despite its importance, however, little is known about the nature of the common good within marketing scholarship. This article presents a systematic, multimethod inquiry to assess the representation and impact of the common good, with a focus on equity. We analyze publications in JPP&M and marketing journals on the Financial Times 50 list. Our work acknowledges the significant influence of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on global policy and the benefits to people around the world. It also responds to the call for marketing scholars to pay more attention to the United Nations’ SDGs. The authors use insights from their inquiry to identify a promising agenda for future research that contributes to the promotion of the common good in relation to eradicating poverty, improving health, achieving universal education and promoting gender equality.
Mothers play a significant role in deciding their adolescents' educational expenditures. They increasingly rely on the Internet for information search and building online support networks to enhance their confidence. Thus, we use the psychological empowerment theory in this study to examine the association between social media use and educational expenditures. Through two studies, we show how a mother's use of social media (active/passive use) significantly impacts adolescent children's educational expenses via dimensions of psychological empowerment. We further demonstrate that the two dimensions of psychological empowerment differentially drive this relationship: intrapersonal (relying on the self) and Interactional (leveraging the community) empowerment. We discover that active (passive) social media use increases mother” intrapersonal (interactional) empowerment. We also find that cross‐cultural differences play a role in psychological empowermen”s effect on educational expenditures, where intrapersonal empowerment is vital in the United States, and interactional empowerment is more relevant in India. Our key contributions to literature are three‐fold: we establish the relationship between a mother's social media use and educational expenditures for their adolescent children, identify predictors of different dimensions of psychological empowerment, and present evidence for cross‐cultural differences in the empowering role of social media. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Vendor relationship management (VRM) is a software tool that helps to provide seamless connectivity between buyer and supplier. With the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) most firms have migrated to electronic VRM (EVRM) capability. Only a few studies have examined how EVRM can impact the dynamic B2B capability of firms that combine technological and social innovation in support of transitions and the achievement of business goals. There are also very few interdisciplinary studies using a range of performance matrices to explore the relationship between firms' dynamic B2B capabilities and their sustainability performance, mediated through their various sustainable growth opportunities. In this context, this study aims to develop an integrative model for B2B EVRM capability and firm sustainability. With the help of dynamic capability view (DCV) theory and related literature, a theoretical model is proposed. This model was later validated using the covariance-based structural equation modeling technique (CB-SEM), in considering 378 responses from Indian firms. The study has three main findings. First, EVRM capability significantly and positively impacts B2B dynamic relationship capability between the firm and the vendors. Second, B2B dynamic relationship management capability has a significant and positive impact on firms' sustainability performance mediated through the financial, environmental, and operational performance of the firm. And third, Environmental dynamism (ED) plays a significant role as a moderator, influencing B2B dynamic relationship management capability.
Colombia—a medium-size country in northern South America with a population of over 50 million people and a GDP of USD 324 billion—was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The government rapidly declared a State of National Emergency, closing the country’s borders and imposing a 5-month and strict lockdown limiting people from leaving their houses while preparing the health and economic system for the upcoming difficulties. Despite these actions, the country has been profoundly and negatively affected by SARS-CoV-2, but some initiatives are worth highlighting as good practices intended to protect the population’s well-being. In this chapter, the authors apply the quality-of-life (QOL) framework of Shultz et al. (The handbook of community well-being, 2017) to analyze how Colombia has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Within this framework, Colombia is considered a country and community that has adapted, over time, as a result of the interaction of endogenous and exogenous forces. The pandemic is viewed as a disastrous exogenous force that shifted Colombia from its balanced path to an unbalanced one. Special emphasis is placed on understanding the factors that made the country both vulnerable to and resilient against the virus, as well as the country’s institutional responses—e.g., government, private sector, and citizens—to mitigate it.KeywordsColombiaCOVID-19Health careEmergency responseSubsistence market dynamicsResilienceWell-being
To uncover pathways for understanding and alleviating poverty, this paper offers an alternative approach for examining the real and unseen processes of destitution and in‐work poverty which shape the lives of consumers. We apply a critical realist paradigm structured around three core tenets — stratified realities, complex causations and generative structures — to surface the nuanced complexities of these issues. A critical realist lens encourages impact by focusing on the deep causes of enduring social problems and provides Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) scholars with an integrative way to work towards transformative policy action. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Resource scarcity is a powerful construct in social sciences. However, explanations about how resources influence overall well‐being are difficult to generalize since much of the research on scarcity focuses on relatively affluent marketplace conditions, limiting its usefulness to large segments of the global population living in poverty. Conversely, poverty research provides cultural insights into resource deprivation, yet it stops short of explaining the systematic variation of scarce resources among impoverished individuals. To bridge these intellectual silos and advance a deeper understanding of scarcity, we integrate resource scarcity research, which builds upon a psychological tradition to understand various forms of everyday deprivation, with poverty research, which builds upon a sociological tradition to understand extreme and enduring deprivation. We propose a novel framework that integrates the concept of consumption adequacy and clarifies resource scarcity’s forms, intensity, duration, and dynamic trajectories. We leverage this framework to generate a research agenda and we propose ways to stimulate dialogue among scarcity and poverty scholars, policymakers, and organizations to help inform impoverished life circumstances and generate effective solutions.
Consumer vulnerability (CV) has evolved into an important management research field over the past two decades. The CV field (hereafter, the field) merits evaluation of its present state and prospects, as it incorporates many subthemes. This study used bibliometric analysis to map and make sense of the field. The sample, retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database, consisted of 291 documents published between 2001 and 2021. This study used citation analysis to identify prolific authors, key documents, and sources in the field. Importantly, this article reveals two aspects of the knowledge structure of the field: intellectual structure and conceptual structure. Co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling were used to explain the intellectual structure of the field, consisting of the field's knowledge foundations and research fronts. A thematic analysis of the field was performed using a bi-dimensional thematic map to uncover the conceptual structure of the field. This article identifies the field’s basic, motor, niche, and emerging/declining themes. A more nuanced view of the conceptual structure was provided by tracing the chronological thematic evolution of the field. Finally, we discuss future research directions in this field.
In Nigeria, the construction industry contributes over 3% of the annual gross domestic product and is the fourth highest employer of labour in Nigeria. Despite its contributions and the huge potential of the Nigerian Engineering and construction industry (NECI), inadequate attention is given to its significance in driving the Nigerian economy. Knowledge, skills, and competences are the main critical success factor of the construction industry. Several challenges are responsible for sloth of the NECI. This study explored these challenges evident in developing and applying knowledge, skills, and competences (KSC) in management of the NECI. The NECI employs an extremely diverse range of workers from extensive and various backgrounds, who are deployed to be managed and supervised. Ineffective management caused by lack of updated KSC, has been identified in academic literatures as a major setback in the NECI. This study identified and extensively discussed these challenges through a review of literature and data from the NECI. The data, on which this study was based, was sourced from 155 completed and usable survey questionnaires and 30 semi-structured interviews with registered engineering and construction professionals in Nigeria. Participants were drawn from membership database of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, practicing in both private and public sectors.
In response to growing calls for racial diversity and inclusion in academia, this article offers a framework for decolonisation of the Australasian Marketing Academy. The purpose of our framework is to help shape the adoption of diversity and inclusion practices in a way that promotes knowledge democracy and amplification of underrepresented voices within the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. This article is thus both a reflective piece and a roadmap to guide the Academy’s journey to decolonisation and representation of its minority members. First, our article highlights experiences of marginalisation in the Australasian context, and the reported barriers to diversity and inclusion of minority voices. Next, we propose our framework which aims to collapse these barriers in favour of a more equitable, cultural, and intellectual convergence, wherein the invisibility of minority scholarship can become as visible and as legitimate as the majority.
The extant review studies on the Base/bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) have paid inadequate attention to the producer and entrepreneur roles of the poor. This review article exclusively focused on BoP producers and subsistence entrepreneurs provides an overview of the current state of research on BoP producers and subsistence entrepreneurs. It encompasses 130 articles from 67 peer-reviewed academic journals and develops an organizing framework for classifying these articles. The conceptual model of entrepreneurship in poverty contexts presented in this article illustrates the drivers, barriers, facilitators and consequences of subsistence entrepreneurship. The conceptual model helps to highlight the relevance of contextually informed public support and advocates adopting a collaborative approach for addressing various challenges faced by BoP producers. We also discuss the implications of our article and provide directions for future research.
In the early 2000s, Prahalad & Hart presented the possibility of serving the poor profitably and alleviating poverty. They introduced the concept of BoP (Bottom/Base of the Pyramid). Recent scholarly work also justifies that BoP is a significant market and it deserves attention from profit‐oriented businesses. An analysis of the existing BoP literature in the marketing domain reveals that the literature is scattered without a classification of themes which can help researchers to understand the breadth of the area and depth of coverage in each of them. Intending to bridge this gap, this study synthesizes research on marketing in the context of BoP. The review uses a structured literature review method and classifies the various marketing studies on the BoP into relevant themes. This analysis of 88 articles published from 2000‐2021 (October) includes a thematic literature review. It presents a comprehensive view of marketing literature on BoP, classifying it into five main themes: Conceptualizing Poverty, Market Assessment, Marketing Strategy, Consumer Behavior, and Role of Technology. The study also identifies major thrust areas within each of these themes. It concludes by offering suggestions for further research on the identified thrust areas, geographical contexts, and methodologies adopted. The study also assimilates insightful theoretical and practical implications.
Micro-entrepreneurs represent the most common type of business in the world, and marketing is a primary means by which they earn their livelihoods. They are especially numerous in emerging markets, and many live precarious lives characterized by poverty and potentially devastating exogenous shocks. This paper examines the marketing practices of microentrepreneurs by studying grocery retailers in a large slum in Cairo, Egypt. Employing detailed data on the marketing practices of these retailers, the paper examines why some micro-entrepreneurs engage in innovation in their marketing practices (and perform better), while others fail to do so. We highlight the causal effect of an important but rarely studied factor – informal property rights – on innovation in marketing practices among microentrepreneurs. Because few micro-entrepreneurs in the context we study have access to formal property rights, the threat of expropriation looms large in their lives. We show that those micro-entrepreneurs who possess their stores (without actually owning them) are substantially less likely to innovate in their marketing practices than those who lease their stores. We make use of an exogenous shock to property rights laws to assess the causal impact of informal property rights on innovation in marketing practices.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced marketing educators to innovate and adapt their existing teaching methods. This paper presents and discusses an experiential learning exercise called the market-immersion project (MIP) and how it was adapted to suit online teaching. The MIP was an integral part of the course on the "bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) and rural markets," which had to be pivoted as a photoessay exercise due to the limitations of not being able to venture out for a physical immersion. The design, implementation, and grading are elaborated for both exercises, and lessons are identified for marketing educators. Building on the lessons from two experiential learning exercises and using Kolb's experiential learning theory, a six-step model of short-term field immersion is proposed. The proposed framework could be useful for marketing educators who want to use experiential exercises, including field-based exercises, in their courses in the post-pandemic scenario. Finally, implications for theory, marketing education, limitations, and future directions are presented.
We examine the interaction effect of country-level aggregate advertising spending and internet access on women’s development. We explain why this interaction effect either enhances or discourages women’s development. Our empirical analysis of aggregate advertising spending across forty-eight countries over five years uncovers a conditional effect. Advertising may have adverse consequences on women’s development when internet access is low. However, in conjunction with high levels of internet access, advertising corresponds to advancing women’s development. Through an experimental study, we show one possible mechanism for this development: on one hand, the growing trend of femvertising produces comments supportive of women’s empowerment. On the other, stereotypically-sexist ads elicit psychological reactance to objectifying messages. Both the celebration of messaging that supports women and the criticism of sexist stereotyping are now being widely shared online. To explore this phenomenon globally, we conducted a qualitative analysis of social media responses to Dove ads aired within multiple countries. We find that consumers amplified empowering advertisements across a range of different cultural contexts. These findings have implications for advertisers, marketers, and policy makers: such constituencies should consider how advertising can facilitate women’s development by providing marketplace conditions that promote personal evolution into unattained-but-attainable versions of the self.
The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the overall well‐being of consumers is disastrous. However, there is limited understanding of how the COVID‐19 situation affects consumer well‐being and how subsistence consumers mitigate well‐being concerns and unique stresses. Following an exploratory, qualitative approach, thirty‐nine in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with subsistence consumers were conducted in India and Bangladesh. Findings from the thematic analysis reveal that subsistence consumers experienced unique stresses and hardships during COVID‐19, which are unforeseen transitory financial stress, psychosocial stress, and marketplace and consumption‐related stresses. Drawing on the appraisal theory of stress, our analysis of the data identifies the co‐existence of two emotion‐focused coping strategies − religiosity and social support − that interplay to overcome their well‐being concerns in the emerging countries of India and Bangladesh. Therefore, it may be of particular interest to managers and policymakers who seek to address the severe consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic on socio‐economically subsistence consumers.
The authors investigate the role of trust between knowledge users and knowledge providers. The kind of knowledge of special concern is formal market research. Users include marketing and nonmarketing managers; providers include marketing researchers within a user's own firm and those external to the firm. A theory of the relationships centering on personal trust is developed to examine (1) how users’ trust in researchers influences various relationship processes and the use of market research and (2) how the relationships vary when examined across dyads. The relationships were tested in a sample of 779 users and providers of market research information. Results indicate that trust and perceived quality of interaction contribute most significantly to research utilization, with trust having indirect effects through other relationship processes, as opposed to important direct effects on research utilization. Deeper levels of exchange, including researcher involvement in the research process and user commitment to the research relationship, however, have little effect on research use. Finally, the relationships in the model show few differences depending on whether the producer and user share marketing or research orientations. Interorganizational dyads, however, generally exhibit stronger model relationships than intraorganizational dyads.
Using survey data from China, we demonstrate that managers' micro interpersonal ties with top executives at other firms and with government officials help improve macro organizational performance. This micro-macro link differs among firms with different (1) ownership types, (2) business sectors, (3) sizes, and (4) industry growth rates. In addition, managerial ties were found to be necessary but insufficient for good performance; a number of traditional strategy variables also drive performance. Theoretically, the findings point to the importance of the social context in which managerial ties are embedded. Empirically, this study provides the first set of quantitative data demonstrating both the extent and limits to which managerial ties are beneficial in a transition economy.
Interview data from China are used to test an argument that executives develop personal connections in societies with underdeveloped legal support for private businesses. In China, such connections are called guanxi. An underdeveloped legal framework makes private-company executives more dependent on guanxi than executives in state-owned or collective-hybrid companies. Compared to the other executives, private-company executives considered business connections more important, depended more on connections for protection, had more government connections, gave more unreciprocated gifts, and trusted their connections more.
This article is based on a 1998 working paper from the authors. It was originally published in Strategy+Business n. 26, first quarter 2002, and is one of the basis for the CK Prahalad best seller of the same title. Tha article argues about the possibility and opportunity to transform the bottom of the pyramid market in a profitable market.
Extending scholarship on industry clusters, this article reconsiders the relationship between development and marketing opportunities
in base-of-the-pyramid market (BOPM) nations. Recent literature on industry clusters suggests a set of theoretical themes
regarding cluster efficiencies, governance, adaptability, and performance. These themes are scrutinized using an extended
case employing longitudinal, ethnographic data collected from an indigenous leather-working cluster in West Africa. The authors’
findings provide guidance in identifying local clusters with global market potential in BOPMs. They lead us to a dynamic market-driven
transformational model of BOPM clusters. Consequently, the authors recommend several keys for leveraging investments in boundary-spanning
firms in BOPM clusters. Finally, the article demonstrates the value of microlevel, longitudinal analyses in assessing cluster
performance in BOPMs.
Billions of people around the world live in subsistence conditions. While this has traditionally been treated as a humanitarian challenge, it also represents a business opportunity. Academic research has yet to explore this notion adequately, particularly from the perspective of marketing. In this chapter, we draw on social capital theory to show how rich social ties in otherwise poor populations constitute assets that can be leveraged for the benefit of firms and consumers alike. Building on these ideas, we contend that a decentralized and externalized marketing structure should be more effective in subsistence contexts. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Firms pursuing growth have a variety of options: expand margins by cutting costs or raising prices; increase sales by attracting new customers, stemming defections, or boosting product use; or broaden scope by expanding product
This article examines the interplay of gender, caste-religion, and household survival strategy formation among Christian and Muslim fisher folk in the south Indian state of Kerala. The methodology consisted of surveys of forty-one households in two villages in which data pertaining to male and female work patterns and other household level data were collected in the summer of 1999. My analysis demonstrates how particular ideologies of gender and work associated with different caste-religion communities influence the strategies individual households adopt. I discuss intersections between gender and caste-religion with other socioeconomic factors and illustrate the manner in which gender then gets reworked in particular ways in the course of economic transformation.
Relationship marketing (RM) has emerged as one of the dominant mantras in business strategy circles, though RM investigations often yield mixed results. To help managers and researchers improve the effectiveness of their efforts, the authors synthesize RM empirical research in a meta-analytic framework. Although the fundamental premise that RM positively affects performance is well supported, many of the authors' findings have significant implications for research and practice. Relationship investment has a large, direct effect on seller objective performance, which implies that additional meditated pathways may explain the impact of RM on performance. Objective performance is influenced most by relationship quality (a composite measure of relationship strength) and least by commitment. The results also suggest that RM is more effective when relationships are more critical to customers (e.g., service offerings, channel exchanges, business markets) and when relationships are built with an individual person rather than a selling firm (which partially explains the mixed effects between RM and performance reported in previous studies).
This paper is an attempt to study the current size and structure of family according to different socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the households in India and its states. Data are obtained from the National Family Health Survey conducted in 1998-99 which covered a representative sample from 26 states in the country. Results suggest that the proportion of nuclear family households in 1998-99 increased relatively in both urban (9 per cent) and rural areas (12 per cent) as compared to that in 1981. The mean family household size in India is 5.24 and it varies by the type of family and the demographic development of the state. This paper tests several socio-demographic hypotheses posed in the context of changing family structure and indicates that caste alone does not determine the joint family system. Rather, the jointness in a family depends on the standard of living and the agricultural land owning status of households in the country.
The authors tested the generalizability of J. P. Meyer and N. J Allen's (1991) 3-component model of organizational commitment to the domain of occupational commitment. Measures of affective, continuance, and normative commitment to occupation were developed and used to test hypotheses concerning their differential relations with antecedent and consequence variables. Confirmatory factor analyses conducted on data collected from samples of student and registered nurses revealed that the 3 component measures of occupational commitment were distinguishable from one another and from measures of the 3 components of organizational commitment. Results of correlation and regression analyses were generally consistent with predictions made on the basis of the 3-component model and demonstrated that occupational and organizational commitment contribute independently to the prediction of professional activity and work behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Applied Psychology is the property of American Psychological Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
The authors conceptualize and empirically examine professional associations' relationship-building efforts (core services performance, rewards for contributions, dissemination of organizational knowledge, member interdependence enhancement activities, and reliance on external membership requirements) that are theorized to enhance their membership's commitment to the relationship as well as the membership's relationship behaviors. Three components of commitment-affective, continuance, and normative-are theorized to mediate differentially the correlation between the associations' relationship-building efforts and their members' relationship behaviors (membership retention, exchange-based participation, and cooperatively based coproduction). Confirmatory factor analysis validates the commitment measures, and structural equations analysis indicates that normative and affective commitment partially mediate the effects of selected relationship-building efforts on coproduction and member participation. Core services performance was the only construct in the model found to affect member retention.
The publication presents comparative research findings of local initiatives spread across a series of sites in South Asia, including Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India. The sites include a range of community media and use information and communication technologies (ICTs) as part of efforts to reduce poverty.
The standard model for the diffusion of innovations in consumer behavior does not adequately account for the incorporation of novel items of non-local origin into the material culture inventory of Hausa-speaking peasants in Niger. A synthetic, culturally relative model composed of elements drawn from the standard diffusion paradigm, from world-systems theory, and from economic and symbolic anthropology provides a more satisfactory account of these processes. Analysis shows that novel goods provide a medium through which alternative paradigms of consumer behavior and reality contend. Among the Hausa, a premarket model, a Western market-mediated model, and an Islamic ethnonationalist model compete for consumer affiliation.
Prevailing wisdom assumes that female consumers are more loyal than male consumers. The authors report conditions under which the reverse is found, depending on the object of customer loyalty. For example, whereas female consumers tend to be more loyal than male consumers to individuals, such as individual service providers, this difference is reversed when the object of loyalty is a group of people. The authors find a similar crossover interaction effect for loyalty to individual employees versus loyalty to companies. This effect is mediated by self-construal in terms of relational versus collective interdependence. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of these gender differences.
This article develops a conceptual framework of roles in marketing relationships. Drawing on emerging theory from economic sociology and March's (1994) notion of decision “logics,” the authors discuss two prototypical relationship roles, namely (1) a “friend,” who uses a “logic of appropriateness” and follows established rules, and (2) a “businessperson,” whose decisions are guided by utility-maximizing considerations under a “logic of consequences.” Next, they use extant theories of interfirm governance to suggest that firms’ relationship strategies can be used both to create different relationship roles in the first place and to activate them over time. The authors posit that activation can have several different outcomes, including reinforcement of an existing dominant role or actual switching to a new one. Theoretically, the conceptual framework allows for integration of different perspectives on interfirm relationships, some of which have provided seemingly inconsistent accounts of firm behavior. From a managerial perspective, the framework identifies specific matches between particular relationship roles on the one hand and firms’ governance strategies on the other hand. In general, the framework suggests that an in-depth understanding of roles is a prerequisite for the deployment of relationship management initiatives toward resellers, customers, and suppliers.
Commitment in channel relationships is modeled as a function of (1) each party's perception of the other party's commitment, (2) self-reported and perceived pledges (idiosyncratic investments and contractual terms) made by each party, and (3) other factors such as communication level, reputation, and relationship history. A dyadic model represented by a simultaneous equation system is estimated with data from 378 pairs of manufacturers and industrial distributors. The results indicate that one type of pledge, idiosyncratic investments, has a strong effect on the commitment of both parties to the relationship. In addition, each party's commitment is affected by the perceived commitment of the other party. Finally, idiosyncratic investments signal commitment, affecting each party's perceptions of the other party's commitment.
The authors show how ethnography can provide multiple strategically important perspectives on behaviors of interest to marketing researchers. They first discuss the goals and four essential characteristics of ethnographic interpretation. Then they review the particular contributions to interpretation of several kinds of ethnographic observation and interview data. Next they discuss how interpretations are built from ethnographic data. They show how multilayered interpretations of market phenomena emerge through systematic analysis of complementary and discrepant data. Finally, the authors articulate three representational strategies that are used to link multilayered interpretations to marketing strategy formulation. They suggest that ethnographic methods are appropriate for apprehending a wide variety of consumption and use situations with implications for market segmentation and targeting; product and service positioning; and product, service, and brand management.
Commitment is an essential part of successful long-term relationships. Whereas commitments by both parties in an exchange can provide the foundation for development of relational social norms, disproportionate commitments can lead to opportunism by the less committed partner. The authors study the effect of the credibility and proportionality of commitment inputs in an exchange upon the development of relational social norms, opportunism, and long-term commitment intentions. They also investigate longitudinal effects of the credibility of long-term commitment intentions, relational social norms, and opportunism in one time period on commitment inputs and long-term commitment intentions in later periods. Data gathered from a behavioral simulation suggest that (1) the credibility of commitment inputs in exchange is positively related to the development of relational social norms, (2) and is positively related to long-term commitment intentions in the same time period, (3) relational social norms may be undermined by opportunistic conduct, and (4) the presence of relational social norms in one time period is positively related to commitment inputs and long-term commitment intentions in later periods.
Several theories of relationship marketing propose that customers vary in their relationships with a firm on a continuum from transactional to highly relational bonds. Few empirical studies have segmented the customer base of an organization into low and high relational groups to assess how evaluations vary for these groups. Using structural equation analysis, the authors analyze the relationships of satisfaction, trust, and commitment to component satisfaction attitudes and future intentions for the customers of a New York off-Broadway repertory theater company. For the low relational customers (individual ticket buyers and occasional subscribers), overall satisfaction is the primary mediating construct between the component attitudes and future intentions. For the high relational customers (consistent subscribers), trust and commitment, rather than satisfaction, are the mediators between component attitudes and future intentions.
Relationship marketing—establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchanges—constitutes a major shift in marketing theory and practice. After conceptualizing relationship marketing and discussing its ten forms, the authors (1) theorize that successful relationship marketing requires relationship commitment and trust, (2) model relationship commitment and trust as key mediating variables, (3) test this key mediating variable model using data from automobile tire retailers, and (4) compare their model with a rival that does not allow relationship commitment and trust to function as mediating variables. Given the favorable test results for the key mediating variable model, suggestions for further explicating and testing it are offered.
This article examines the contribution of a sectoral approach to understanding gender constraints on economic success in the informal sector, using the example of self-employed women in home-based garment production in Ahmedabad, India. The author assesses whether all the constraints laid out in the gender and microenterprise development literature affect women in this sector and, if not, suggests how theory on gender inequality in the microenterprise sector needs to be rethought to address variation by sector. Constraints are disaggregated into women intensive, women exclusive, and sector specific. The results show that the women-exclusive constraints all hold within this sector, that there is variation among the women-intensive constraints in their differential gender effect, and that some sector-specific constraints tend to be more intense for women relative to men. The latter two results suggest that variation by economic activity must be accounted for in understanding the sources and extent of gender inequality in economic outcomes.
Few studies have examined how cultural models of agency and literacy are related to thinking styles. The present study fills this gap by examining these links among 180 low-income women with low to moderate levels of literacy. Among these women, those with lower literacy levels believed more strongly in negotiable fate—the belief that although one lacks direct control over one’s fate, one can negotiate control with it. More importantly, among the low-literate participants, the belief in negotiable fate was linked to a greater tendency to exhibit decontextualized judgment and rule-based categorization. This result suggests that thinking style may grow out of an adaptive process whereby people with limited resources negotiate control with the harsh environment they face. This result also highlights the theoretical contribution of a sociocultural perspective to thinking style.
In August 2006, 85 academicians and practitioners from industry and the nonprofit sector came together on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago for a conference unlike others in recent management research history. This conference focused on the subsistence marketplace and its constituents – the billions of individuals and families living in substandard housing, with limited or no education; having limited or no access to sanitation, potable water, and health care; and earning minimal incomes. Subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs have been largely ignored by contemporary marketing and management research and practice, but are poised to become a driving force in 21st century economic and business development. It is expected that as many as 1 billion new consumers wielding discretionary income will enter global markets before 2020. In addition, even among those consumers who lack discretionary income, it is expected that they will be much more active in the marketplace in the near future, because of expanded access to products and information through the Internet and wireless technologies (Davis & Stephenson, 2006). Moreover, the combined purchasing power of these consumers, already in the trillions of dollars, is likely to grow at higher rates than that of consumers in industrialized economies. These factors come together to suggest that consumer markets will need to adjust radically to the needs and demands of these emerging markets over the next 2 to 3 decades, even though companies and scholars across the business disciplines know very little about subsistence consumers. It was this need for knowledge about subsistence marketplaces that inspired the conference and the research presented here.
How do people with few material resources manage their consumption lives? We address this question by investigating the consumption practices and processes of 27 subsistence consumers in South Africa. These individuals are economically active, underserved consumers who either had in the past or have today few resources in terms of income, employment, and education; most of these consumer–informants grew up in and/or live in urban townships populated by poor black South Africans. Our interpretation is based on family systems theory and centers on analyses showing that subsistence consumers enact strategies to cope with the chronic stress of resource allocation needs for the family that outpace resource generation. The repertoire of strategies includes: (1) adhering to resource generation opportunities, (2) accessing new resources, (3) talking to family members, (4) trying and striving, (5) sacrificing, and (6) risking. These strategies are discussed in light of family systems theory, consumer behavior research, and marketing to subsistence consumers.
This article identifies some key factors shaping the micro-enterprise sector in urban French West Africa. Drawing on interviews with micro-entrepreneurs and micro-finance practitioners in Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo, the study explores the needs, characteristics, motivations, and success factors for micro-entrepreneurship in the region, together with some of the impediments to the growth and success of micro-enterprise ventures. It was found that those operating micro-enterprises in the informal economy are entrepreneurs principally by necessity, and that their most basic needs tend to drive their business activities and behaviours. It was also observed that their success was constrained by a number of barriers, including poor access to capital, poor training, and general aversion to risk. As a result, the development of the micro-enterprise sector in urban French West Africa has been sub-optimal, and the authors conclude that this situation may persist unless broader economic and social barriers are addressed.
The more significant principles of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) concern the behavior and attitudes of outsider facilitators, including not rushing, “handing over the stick,” and being self-critically aware. The power and popularity of PRA are partly explained by the unexpected analytical abilities of local people when catalyzed by relaxed rapport, and expressed through sequences of participatory and especially visual methods. Evidence to date shows high validity and reliability of information shared by local people through PRA compared with data from more traditional methods. Explanations include reversals and shifts of emphasis: from etic to emic, closed to open, individual to group, verbal to visual, and measuring to comparing; and from extracting information to empowering local analysts.
The concept of commitment is widely used but has received little formal analysis. It contains an implicit explanation of one mechanism producing consistent human behavior. Commitments come into being when a person, by making a side bet, links extraneous interests with a consistent line of activity. Side bets are often a consequence of the person's participation in social organizations. To understand commitments fully, an analysis of the system of value within which side bets are made is necessary
Organizational commitment has been conceptualized and measured in various ways. The two studies reported here were conducted to test aspects of a three-component model of commitment which integrates these various conceptualizations. The affective component of organizational commitment, proposed by the model, refers to employees' emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in, the organization. The continuance component refers to commitment based on the costs that employees associate with leaving the organization. Finally, the normative component refers to employees' feelings of obligation to remain with the organization. In Study 1, scales were developed to measure these components. Relationships among the components of commitment and with variables considered their antecedents were examined in Study 2. Results of a canonical correlation analysis suggested that, as predicted by the model, the affective and continuance components of organizational commitment are empirically distinguishable constructs with different correlates. The affective and normative components, although distinguishable, appear to be somewhat related. The importance of differentiating the components of commitment, both in research and practice, is discussed. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Journal of Occupational Psychology is the property of British Psychological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts)
Globalization of the Indian economy has dramatically influenced social life in India. The expansion of the middle class is said to have occurred as a consequence of this process. Based on ethnographic research among lower middle-class families in West Bengal, India, the author examines the apparent paradox between women's positive perceptions of empowerment and the overall negative impact of structural adjustment policies on women. Many scholars argue that globalization has been detrimental to women due to growing structural gender inequalities, but many respondents identify greater opportunities to challenge preexisting patriarchal norms through the role models available in the globalized media. While there are increasing inequalities for households, women do not consider these to be gender disadvantages, emphasizing instead the opportunities for greater independence. The author pays particular attention to the confluence of the prowomen consumer discourses of the global market with earlier developmentalist notions of the public role of women.
In this chapter, we discuss theoretical and conceptual models that use an organismic or systems metaphor for understanding families. We suggest that such theories are important for stimulating new research and organizing existing data, and that advances in these theories over the past few decades have expanded the potential for understanding child development, as well as adult adaptation and the development of close relationships. These paradigms follow from models that view development as resulting from the transactional regulatory processes of dynamic systems. Such models are helpful for considering multiple influences on development and adaptation and have implications for the design of effective interventions. We focus on the specifics of systems theories as applied to families, and the research generated by or consistent with these views. Our review is not exhaustive; rather, we intend to give a sense of the direction of this work and its importance for the understanding of development and adaptation.
“Clean Water, No Profit,”
- Sarah Ellison
- Eric Bellman
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
- Paul Hawken
“Rural India, Have a Coke,”
- Manjeet Kripalani
The Next Four Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid
- Allen L Hammond
- William J Kramer
- Robert S Katz
- Julia T Tran
- Courtland Walker
“Ethnography, Export Marketing Policy, and Economic Development in Niger,”
- Eric J Arnould
Capitalism at the Crossroads
- Stuart L Hart
“Commitment to Personal Relationships,”
- Michael P Johnson