Bottom Of Pyramid Research Articles

Researching the marginalised bottom of the pyramid in Africa: Lessons and prospects for inclusive, relevant practices

Africa is home to 27 of the world’s 28 poorest, marginalised and most vulnerable countries. There are limited studies on the challenges and opportunities of researching marginalised consumers in Africa, even though more than 440 million marginalised consumers consume products and services that require market research. This paper aims to critically identify and discuss the challenges and opportunities for researching marginalised consumers in Africa using insights from empirical studies conducted in various countries between 2009 and 2022. The paper proposes a conceptual framework that outlines the methodological and operational challenges and enablers for market research and concludes with practical guidelines of considerations that researchers should take for researching the marginalised in Africa.

Inovação frugal na expansão de subsidiária de multinacional em um mercado emergente

Abstract Frugal innovation consists of creating solutions based on the parsimonious use of resources with essential quality, design, and functionality, offered to customers with lower purchasing power. This study aims to analyze how a frugal innovation evolves in a multinational company during its expansion into a new market at the base of the pyramid (BoP). The adopted research strategy is a case study of a multinational subsidiary whose unit of analysis is the development of a frugal product from its inception to its presence in the market. A theoretical model that identifies the antecedents, processes, and results of frugal innovation supports data analysis. This study thus contributes establishing propositions that give specificity to the model with regard to the expansion of multinationals in an emerging market. The results reveal that strategy and brand consolidation precede the development of a frugal product, which is followed by systematic analysis of market characteristics, consumer behavior, and local competition. Additionally noteworthy are the horizontal integration and dynamic interaction of marketing and production; the adoption of a design that integrates basic functionalities, qualities, aesthetic attributes; and the minimal use of resources, the elimination of nonessential functionalities, the adoption of modularity as a production strategy, and the mastery of skills in production and learning strategies. Finally, the findings indicate the relevant combination and dynamization of organizational capabilities and their influence in reversing the technology transfer orientation between headquarters, as well as the consequences of frugal innovation.

Relationship Between Availability and Bottom of the Pyramid Market Performance among the Fast Moving Consumers’ Goods Companies in Kenya

In this study, we examine availability as one of the four strategies employed by FMCG firms at the bottom of the pyramid through a cross-sectional survey of FMCGs firms in Nairobi Kenya using mixed methods research. We test the influence of availability on performance measured by market share and profitability of the firms and further test the effect of taxation on this relationship. A significant relationship exists between availability strategies and performance and taxation negatively moderates the relationship between availability and performance of the firms. We conclude that availability strategies are crucial for the success of firms at the BOP and that taxation can discourage investment in this segment. Besides clarifying the relationship between availability attributes and indicators (sales growth and market share), these findings have implication for policy on taxation and management practice regarding prioritization of emphasis on the various availability strategies (measured through product access and use channels) that organizations can choose from.

Beyond radical affordability in the base of the pyramid: The role of consumer self‐confidence in product acceptance

AbstractWhen developing products and services for base of the economic pyramid (BoP) consumers, it has been widely assumed that organizations must set extremely low prices that are dependent on substantial product acceptance and economies of scale. However, such pricing is often not feasible. Growing evidence suggests that more moderate price levels are needed for organizations to viably serve the needs of low‐income consumers. However, price sensitivity is less understood in low‐income contexts. To promote the success of social enterprises through fresh insight, we reexamine the extremely low‐price BoP assumption by investigating product acceptance among low‐income consumers using two experiments in Latin America. Results reveal that a belief in one's capabilities to make effective consumption decisions, consumer self‐confidence, helps explain the acceptance of moderately‐priced products. Discussion highlights directions for stimulating acceptance of socially beneficial products in low‐income contexts.

Interactions between concerns for the environment and other sources of concern in 31 European countries

Understanding how different sources of concern interact in people’s mind is a question that has entertained generations of scholars. The finite-pool-of-worry (FPW) hypothesis states that humans have limited resources to worry, thus when they are worried about one issue they become less worried about other issues. Instead, the affect generalization theory (AGT) posits that an increased level of worry about one threat increases concerns about related threats. To this end, we adopt a Lotka–Volterra model to detect instances of AGT and FPW among worries for the environment, economy, safety, social issues and immigration in 31 European countries between 2012 and 2019 (Eurobarometer data). Consistently with AGT, we find that an increase in the concern for the environment often favors the growth of concerns for the economy. Meanwhile, consistently with FPW, an increase in the concerns for the economy and for other sources of worry, often pushes down concerns for the environment. Building on our results, we hypothesize the existence of a pyramid of worries. At the bottom of the pyramid lie worries like concerns for the economy, which generally predate other worries. Concerns for the environment lie at the very top of the pyramid as they are generally predated by other worries. Last, we find that AGT and FPW can coexist not only over time and across countries, but also as a result of an asymmetric interaction.

BANKING SECTOR DEVELOPS RURAL WOMEN THROUGH MICRO FINANCE: AN ANALYSIS

The institutional credit agencies like commercial banks, Regional Rural Banks (RRBS) and Cooperative banks have been playing a pivotal role in the formation, strengthening and development of the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) through micro nance in India. In fact, the banking institutions have become more instrumental in developing micro-enterprises by the women members of Self-Help Groups through providing nancial services. Self-Help Groups linkage programmes is suitable and an effective intervention in economic uplift met and nancial inclusion for the bottom of the pyramid.1 A proven platform initially conceived for increasing the outreach of banking services among the poor has since graduated to a programme for promotion of livelihoods and poverty the banking sector in rural and urban areas.2 An attempt is made her to analyze the different, nancial agencies such as CBs, RRBs and Cooperative banks in providing nancial services to the poor and marginalized sections for the promotion and strengthening of self-help groups in India. Micro-nance is an economic development tool whose objective is to assist the poor to work their way out of poverty. In fact, micro-nance is powerful weapon to remove the poverty in our country. There is a greater involvement of banks in providing the loans to the women members of the Self-Help Groups in the country. The institutional credit agencies have played a crucial role in the development of the poor women members of the SHGs.The Regional Rural Banks have covered more than 45 per cent of the women by way of providing loans and advances whereas the Commercial Banks have given the highest amount of loans to the women members of the SHGs. The Cooperative Banks are in the third position in providing the microcredit to the women members of the SHGs. On the whole, the banking sector has played a dominant role in the provision of the bank loans to the poor women of the SHGs in India.

Compartilhamento de representações nas relações entre propostas de negócios, visões de consumo e políticas governamentais

ABSTRACT Purpose: This theoretical essay aims to explore sustainable consumption, emphasizing the sharing of representations with business proposals and government policies. Originality/value: Through consumption, gains in quality of life and forms of social insertion are created by social businesses. Studies on social representations can indicate the sharing of views between different social actors, such as companies, governments and consumers. The text continues with a discussion on the theory of social representations and the dynamics of sustainable consumption. Social representations guide the views, actions, and attitudes of individuals, including when it comes to insertion in the dynamics of consumption. Subsequently, business proposals for the base of the pyramid are highlighted, discussing different possible scenarios for their relationships with consumers and government policies. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical essay is characterized by the development of theory as a conceptual production, in which logic takes the place of data for evaluation and elaboration of propositions. Findings: A greater or lesser sharing of representations allows for the design of different possible scenarios for the relationships between consumers with a moralistic or hedonistic vision, social or traditional business proposals, and governments with policies for sustainable or spurious development. Finally, propositions about the existence of gaps between the representations of the needs of consumers oriented towards sustainable development, value propositions of social businesses, and government instruments in emerging markets are mentioned.

ІНФОРМАЦІЙНЕ ПОЛЕ ПІДПРИЄМСТВА ЯК ОСНОВА ФОРМУВАННЯ НОВОЇ СИСТЕМИ ОБЛІКУ

The value of the accounting system for enterprise management cannot be overestimated because accounting information is at the base of the pyramid of knowledge about the business of enterprises and the economy of the state in a broad sense, but at the same time the question arises, is the volume of such information sufficient to control economic processes? Unfortunately, the current level of economic management, from microenterprises to macroeconomics, is far from ideal. Historically, enterprises use, in most cases, standard «accounting» information, which is methodologically limited to the generation of exclusively financial activities in the enterprise as a whole, at a time when the management requires for control actual operational information about the performance of work in individual structural divisions, as well as achieving a strategic goal. The lack of operational (managerial) accounting in structural divisions and strategic accounting for enterprise development at most enterprises leads to a low level of management of the economy of enterprises, since without information, managers do not perform the control function, and decisions are made chaotically based on experience and intuition. The information field can be imagined as a symbol of an open space where the facts of economic activity take place in their temporal and spatial dimensions. The field includes many different things, phenomena and processes between which there are relationships, interconnections and constant changes that are a consequence of the company's activities. Attempts to create new accounting subsystems often do not achieve their goal, because the general theory of accounting does not consider them, there are no methodological materials for implementation, and most importantly, accounting scientists, with the exception of individual authors, do not offer new ideas for the development of a new accounting system. The purpose of the article is aimed at revealing the cause of the unsatisfactory state with the development of a new accounting system for management, as a result of which the authors came to the conclusion that without the introduction of such a basic concept as the information field of the enterprise into the accounting science, the accounting system cannot develop.

What drug to buy? generic brand substitution in base of the pyramid markets: Evidence from Ghana

Prescription brand substitution also known as generic substitution (GS)is a worldwide phenomenon. In the pharmaceutical industry, growth of the generic drug market implies growth in the number and types of substitutes for ethical (innovator) pharmaceutical products. This threat is relevant mainly due to the comparatively lower prices of these substitutes. Ultimately, prescription brand substitution renders the various marketing efforts and investments of the affected pharmaceutical companies fruitless. The efforts in the literature have focused more on cost as the reason but there seems to be more reasons than cost in developing countries like Ghana. The study examined the marketing-related impacts of prescription brand substitution at community pharmacies in Ghana. Utilizing the ideas of Porter’s five competitive forces model, specifically the threat of substitute products and services, the study which is cross-sectional, deductive and descriptive survey in nature, used a mix of cluster sampling and purposive sampling to arrive at a final sample size of 50 pharmacies and 9 pharmaceutical companies,. Data collected were analysed using simple linear regression and descriptive statistics. Weak but statistically significant relationship between frequency of pharmacy calls and nature of drug substitution was observed. Also, prescription brand substitution is prevalent at community pharmacies in Ghana, and that ethical companies are the most affected. Pharmacy front line staff and patients played contributory roles in this phenomenon. It is recommended that Ethical pharmaceutical companies should acknowledge, plan and act in order to minimize the competitive effects of prescription brand substitution

A case study on the bearing characteristics of a bottom uplift pile in a layered foundation

The bottom uplift pile, which has been applied in practical projects, has the following advantages: the pile body is not easy to crack, good bearing characteristics, and small displacement of the pile top. Based on the bearing capacity test of foundation piles in the third stage expansion project of Lanzhou Zhongchuan International Airport, the upper part pile of the self-balancing test method was used to simulate the bottom uplift pile, and the anchor piles in the anchor pile method were regarded as normal uplift piles. The bearing characteristics of the bottom uplift pile in a layered foundation were studied by comparing these two kinds of piles. The results show that under the same displacement of the pile top, the ultimate uplift bearing capacity of the bottom uplift pile can be more than twice that of the normal uplift pile because of the fully exerted frictional resistance of the soil at the bottom of the pile, the Poisson effect of the pile body and the avoidance of the influence of pile body deformation on the pile top displacement. The maximum axial force of the bottom uplift pile appears at the bottom of the pile and gradually decreases from the bottom to the top, which is opposite to that of the normal uplift pile. The properties and thickness of the soil layers around the pile have a great influence on the distribution curves of the frictional resistance along the pile length of the two kinds of uplift piles. With changing soil layer conditions, the distribution curve may be a "parabola", a "straight line" or a "double line". The soil property plays a decisive role in the frictional resistance, which may cause softening. The influence of the pile diameter on the ultimate uplift bearing capacity is greater than that of the pile length, while the elastic modulus of the pile has little influence.

RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN A CHALLENGING NIGERIAN SOCIETY

Women as with all humans have a number of rights, including the right to learn, to be free from abuse and prejudice, to own property, to enjoy well-being in all of its ramifications, and to earn an equivalent income. Evidence depict women as being at the base of the pyramid in all human development indices, ranging from political participation to socio-cultural and financial independence to inheritance rights to land and property appropriation, to educational enrollment among many other measures. However, across the sphere and in the Nigerian context, a number of women still experience unfairness, given their femininity. Gender disparity emphasizes how women experience a range of rights issues and prejudices within various on-hand laws, which encourage some grave contests in view of denial and marginalization. This could be due to patriarchy; as an intensely entrenched practice in some cultures in nearly all developing societies, has upheld the feminization of poverty, exclusion, segregation, financial deprivation, inequality, and sociocultural repression, which challenge the rights of women. As a largely patriarchal society, the rights of women in Nigeria have been tapered; as issues of gender disparity and women, empowerment is often gazed at with suspicion by men and kept women’s aspirations under ruthless control. All of these rights issues pose legitimate concerns to the helping professions, given the longstanding insistence on the liberation and empowerment of marginal and silenced groups such as women, to promote their human rights and achieve their aspirations. Therefore, challenging women’s rights issues is a professional imperative for which government, NGOs, international bodies, all lawmakers, activists, helping professionals… researchers and policymakers should be actively involved regardless of practice orientation.

Physiotherapeutic Strategies and Their Current Evidence for Canine Osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common and debilitating condition in domestic dogs. Alongside pharmaceutical interventions and weight loss, exercise and physiotherapy (PT) are important measures in maintaining patient mobility and quality of life. Physiotherapy for OA aims to reduce pain, optimize muscular function and maintain joint function. Physiotherapeutic plans typically include PT exercises combined with therapeutic modalities, lifestyle and environmental modifications to improve the patient's overall quality of life and function. Information on therapeutic clinical efficacy of physiotherapeutic measures for canine OA is still very limited. Thus, physiotherapeutic strategies are still primarily based on evidence extrapolated from human protocols tailored to people with OA. The authors propose a simple systematic PT approach for canine OA, prioritizing measures according to simplicity, cost effectiveness and practicality. This guide (the "Physiotherapy Pyramid") aims to provide a clear stratified approach to simplify decision making and planning for owners, veterinarians and veterinary physiotherapists, leading to more straightforward design and implementation of treatment plans. Measures are implemented starting at the base of the pyramid, subsequently progressing to the top, allowing effective and practical interventions to be prioritized. The levels of the pyramid are in ascending order: environmental modification, exercise plan, OA-specific home exercises and treatment by a veterinary physiotherapist.

The impact of poverty on base of the pyramid operations: Evidence from mobile money in Africa

AbstractBusiness models designed to serve those at the “base of the pyramid” are an effective means to create employment and improve quality of life. However, the effect that poverty has on the performance of such businesses is not well‐understood. We address this gap through the context of “mobile money,” an electronic currency ecosystem designed as a secure, reliable way for those at the base of the pyramid to store and transfer money. Using data from Kenya and Uganda, and instrumenting for potentially endogenous regressors, we examine the effect poverty has on operational decisions (inventory and price transparency) and market dimensions (network density and demand). Our results suggest that mobile money, as a base of the pyramid business model, is well‐positioned to serve those in poverty up to a point, with demand increasing in poverty when the concentration of poverty is sufficiently low. However, our results indicate that, where poverty is more pervasive, inventory costs increase in poverty while per agent demand and agent network density both decrease. In short, the business case for mobile money degenerates in regions where it, arguably, is needed the most. We conclude with thoughts on how to buttress mobile money's business case in these high poverty settings.

Analyzing the Association between Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) and Export Performance in Born Global Firms: A FGLS Model Approval between 2011 and 2021

The Bottom of the Pyramid is consumers with limited purchasing power who even make economic efforts to purchase daily or frequent consumer goods. This market niche has historically been overlooked since consumers are more concerned with price than product differentiation. However, the BOP markets provide companies with the opportunity to export their goods, penetrate these markets, and have successful exports. Based on the literature, this study examines the influence of BoP orientation on the export performance of Born Global companies, as well as the role of government assistance in exportation and networking with institutional partners. Data from 341 Born Global companies in Colombia are collected, resulting in an unbalanced panel (FGLS) between 2011 and 2021. The findings support a positive relationship between BoP orientation and export performance. Additionally, this research confirmed that this relationship is moderated by government assistance and institutional social networks. In this regard, Born Global’s export performance is improved by internal and external resources to compensate for its lack of international experience and limited financial resources.

Twenty‐five years of management research on poverty: A systematic review of the literature and a research agenda

AbstractDespite significant economic growth in both developed and emerging markets, several disadvantaged and marginalized segments of the global population still live in poverty. Recognizing the important role of business in alleviating poverty, management scholars have been increasingly investigating the topic of poverty. Although reviews of the extant literature have provided overviews of select poverty‐related themes, such as that of the base of the pyramid, no one study has reviewed the topic of poverty across the management literature. The present systematic literature review collects, organizes and analyzes several hundred articles on poverty research, published in business and management journals during the past 25 years. The study identifies major themes in poverty research, reveals thematic overlaps among subdisciplines, summarizes adopted research methodologies, and recognizes opportunities for future research. We find that, despite the wide variation of research topics and approaches, the studied themes remain relatively insulated within each subdiscipline of management research. Drawing on United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, we conclude that, although the number of articles on poverty has increased considerably during the last decade, there are several research niches that future management scholars can investigate to alleviate one of the most pressing global challenges of our time.

BoPMLPIP: Application of Classification Techniques to Explore the Impact of PIP among BoPs

This study tries to gain insight into the effect of demographic and psychological variables on the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) consumers for making Packaging Influenced Purchase (PIP) decisions by focusing on two specific consumer behaviour theories - compensatory consumption and consumers’ resistance. Being the product's face, packaging contributes heavily to the above mentioned two streams of consumption behaviour. A collection of ten demographic variables and four psychological variables have been administered on a sample of 1400 BoP consumers to explore their effect behind making PIP of selected FMCG products. Various classification techniques have been deployed to capture the impact of these variables. This experimental research design revealed that both demographic and psychological variables affect the PIP. The comparison between urban and rural BoPs potentially comes with the guidelines for practical marketing implications.

Disruptive Innovation at the Base-of-the-Pyramid: Negotiating the Missing Links

The disruptive innovation framework has become a topical issue in recent years. Despite its popularity, as well as the perceived strategic advantages it bestows on entrant firms, little is known about the disruptive innovation capability of new-technology-based firms (NTBFs) in the South African context. This article explores the contextual factors that influence disruptive innovation capability in South Africa’s base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) environment and how, given the specifics of this operating environment, entrepreneurs strategize for disruptive innovation capability. Following the development of a conceptual framework, we used a grounded theory approach to conduct in-depth interviews with purposefully selected stakeholders in the NTBF incubation sector. Our findings show that South Africa has the catalytic socio-economic dynamics to encourage the development of disruptive innovations. However, despite having fairly robust institutions in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, these fall short of enabling the innovation capability of NTBFs, owing to the poor-quality linkages between and among institutions within the ecosystem. On the strength of these findings, we synthesised a framework of disruptive innovation capability in BoP environments that highlights the contextual factors that influence disruptive innovation capability. Specifically, we demonstrate how the quality of linkages in the entrepreneurial ecosystem influences the innovation outcomes for innovators.

Social impact operations at the global base of the pyramid

In recent years, our field has seen an increase in research that explicitly emphasizes an objective of social impact in the most unprivileged parts of the world—the so‐called global base of the pyramid (BOP; referring to the 2.7 billion people living on less than $2.50 per day, the largest but most resource‐poor economic group globally). This trend seems to cut across the traditional application areas of operations management (OM) and operations research (OR), and it coincides with an increased emphasis on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) values in industry, a greater prominence of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and increases in social impact research in other academic fields. In this paper, we pull together representative examples from our field of what we consider as social impact research aimed at improving living conditions at the BOP. We first examine the scale and scope of work published in Production and Operations Management over the last 25 years, and then provide a broader summary of the spectrum of research within OM and OR that constitute this stream of literature. We adopt the stance that OM and OR should embrace the current societal emphasis on social responsibility and positive social impact—and strive to contribute to the most pressing problems for those living at the BOP. Although our field has produced a body of work addressing such problems, individual research projects of this type are usually not viewed as falling under the broad umbrella of social impact operations (SIO), but rather are classified as part of the closest application area. By providing an initial overview of this work, we wish to celebrate the contribution of our field to this area, highlight common themes, catalyze a dialogue across application areas among researchers with a common perspective, and identify opportunities for future research.

Experimental study on near wake shedding structure of pyramid roughness element in liquid–solid two-phase turbulent boundary layer

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) on the liquid–solid turbulent boundary layer containing solid particles with an average diameter of 355 μm is used to study the shedding structure near-field of the pyramid with varied yaw angle values (0°, 15°, 30°, and 45°). We find that the recirculation zone grows larger with increasing value by comparing the average velocity field and turbulence intensity at various angles. When closed vortex lines develop behind the pyramid at about (h, 0.8 h), the center of the recirculation zone gradually stabilizes; in the meantime, the turbulence intensity rises relative to the small α values. Power spectral density function (PSD) and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) are used to analyze the near-field. According to the findings, various values have an impact on wake shedding structures. At the top and base of the pyramid, shearing vortices occur simultaneously on a regular basis, and their incidence is sensitive to variations in α. Similar top shedding structures are observed at various angles in the POD results. Furthermore, with increasing α, the reattachment vortex is observed at the downstream edge of the pyramid. We study the behavior and statistical properties of particles at various positions, and our findings suggest that the upper flow field's particle concentration distribution dispersion is greater than that of the wake. Some particles from the vicinity of the pyramid is attracted into the wake's recirculation zone and is carried downstream by the shedding vortex.

How exaptation mediates the effects of customer participation on low-cost innovation: The role of strategic flexibility.

With the advent of emerging markets, the need for low-cost innovation to meet the rising demands of people at the base of the pyramid has increased significantly. Although the critical influence of customer participation on new product development has been recognized, there have been few studies on the effects of customer participation on low-cost innovation. This study builds a moderated mediation model and explores the roles of customer participation on low-cost innovation. Based on the exaptation and strategic flexibility theories, the mediating role of exaptation and the moderating role of strategic flexibility are emphasized. A survey of 348 firms revealed that customer participation positively impacted both exaptation and low-cost innovation. In addition, exaptation mediated the correlation between customer participation and low-cost innovation. Resource flexibility negatively moderated the correlation between customer participation and exaptation and negatively moderated the mediating effect of exaptation. Furthermore, coordinate flexibility positively moderated the correlation between customer participation and exaptation and positively moderated the mediating effect of exaptation.