Base of the Pyramid entrepreneurship through silent design and effectuation

Abstract

This study aims at understanding how entrepreneurs at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) are ‘silent designers’ when fostering their service ventures. We couch our interpretation of their activities in the concepts of effectuation and silent design. We eschew a top-down notion of entrepreneurship and service design, which tries to understand what should be developed for the BoP, and instead focus on service design ‘by the BoP’ and ‘with the BoP’, and proffer a new concept of ‘BoP entrepreneurship by silent design of service’. Two longitudinal case studies showcase a boat service innovation through an individual entrepreneur and an NGO-led vehicles program in the same BoP setting. A key finding is the necessity to embed silent design and entrepreneurship concepts in the context of BoP, that is by employing silent design characteristics, and by complementing design concepts with effectuation logic. From a practical perspective, the findings indicate that active and passive interventions in BoP entrepreneurship must be based on understanding such embedded service design concepts, as exemplified in BoP entrepreneurship by silent design of service.