Subsistence Marketplaces Research Articles

Understanding the Dynamics between Social Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Growth in Subsistence Marketplaces

This article explores how social entrepreneurs utilize their unique circumstances and resources at a micro level to facilitate the creation of shared value at the meso level, leading to inclusive growth at a macro level in the context of subsistence marketplaces. Drawing from explanatory case studies of two social enterprises—Waste Concern (Bangladesh) and Seven Women (Nepal)—the findings suggest that social entrepreneurs act as bricoleurs to integrate their operant and operand resources in subsistence marketplaces to facilitate inclusive growth. The authors further connect with and extend three discourses of research—social entrepreneurship, social bricolage, and service-dominant logic—to develop a framework providing insights into the “bottom-up” approach, the underlying dynamics of shared value creation, and inclusive growth in subsistence marketplaces by social entrepreneurs. The findings also strengthen Dees's (2001) definition of social entrepreneurship, confirming its applicability and relevance in subsistence marketplaces and further extending the theory of social bricolage. The authors discuss the implications of these findings, including tactical interventions aimed at providing better understanding of how social entrepreneurs create value in resource-constrained marketplaces, from a bottom-up perspective.

Consumption Constraints and Entrepreneurial Intentions in Subsistence Marketplaces

More than a billion entrepreneurs worldwide live in subsistence contexts and run microenterprises to meet life's basic consumption needs. In this article, the authors investigate how two types of consumption constraints in poverty, chronic and periodic constraints, combine to influence entrepreneurial intention. Chronic and periodic constraints are concomitant in subsistence marketplaces and represent consumption-side constraints. A field experiment shows that chronic constraints amplify entrepreneurial intention, but this effect is contingent on the level of periodic constraints. When experiencing low periodic constraints, people with high chronic constraints have greater entrepreneurial intentions than do those with low chronic constraints. When experiencing more periodic constraints, however, the authors do not find this difference. Another field experiment shows the effectiveness of marketplace literacy education in alleviating the adverse impact of periodic constraints through enhancing entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The authors present specific policy recommendations for government, social enterprise, and business relating to enhancing entrepreneurship among the poor in the face of such constraints.

Cross-Sector Collaboration, Institutional Gaps, and Fragility: The Role of Social Innovation Partnerships in a Conflict-Affected Region

The authors aim to contribute to the literature on subsistence marketplaces and the marketing field in general by exploring social innovation partnerships in a fragile country characterized by institutional gaps—specifically, by considering the role of cross-sector collaboration in conflict-affected areas. The empirical setting consists of coffee partnerships in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the authors collected data from and about companies, nongovernmental organizations, and cooperatives using both primary and secondary sources, including a field trip, interviews, and group discussions with farmers and their families. They show results at the organizational level (i.e., buildup of managerial capacities, transfer of financial-administrative skills, and improved functioning of cooperatives), the farmer level (i.e., better prices, livelihoods, and access to markets as well as increased revenues), and the community level (i.e., reduced tensions and collaboration between previously hostile groups as well as the creation of new governance modalities). The study suggests that partnerships may offer a systemic approach to addressing institutional gaps, which is necessary in such “extreme” contexts. The authors close with a discussion of further implications for research and public policy.

Appropriation of Community Knowledge

In Base of the Pyramid (BoP) and subsistence marketplaces literature, a general consensus prevails that the process of creating solutions for the poor is most successful when marketers gain a local perspective. This paper highlights that, as companies seek this local perspective within impoverished communities, they can appropriate community knowledge. Drawing on research in the area of community knowledge, an area of growing importance that is all but missing from the marketing literature, this paper explicates key features of community knowledge. Appropriation of community knowledge can have potential benefits to communities, but also can cause social harm, including undermining financial, economic, and cultural safety, in the BoP community. The papers proposes a framework, bridging ethical and legal approaches, that guides marketers to consider consent, cognitive justice, capacity, and community impact in order to mitigate harm and generate social benefits.

Developing Customer Solutions for Subsistence Marketplaces in Emerging Economies: a Bottom–Up 3C (Customer, Community, and Context) Approach

This article demonstrates why and how bottom–up understanding and local collaboration can enable outside entities to design context-sensitive solutions in subsistence marketplaces in emerging markets. Using the literature, we argue that external entities need to understand subsistence marketplaces from the bottom–up in terms of customers/consumers, communities, and the larger context. In turn, they should design context-sensitive core solutions that involve a true collaboration with the preexisting entrepreneurial ecosystem. We use a case study where the first author had direct involvement in implementation to abstract generalizable insights and further assess our arguments with two other case studies from a different organizational context. We draw on these insights to derive implications for marketing management in subsistence marketplaces.

Exploring the impact of mobile money services on marketing interactions in relation to consumer well-being in subsistence marketplaces – lessons from rural Cambodia

The mobile phone has increasingly become a channel for providing access to formal financial services. There is a need to understand how financial service offerings, increasingly accessed through mobile phones, impact marketing interactions, specifically marketing exchange activities and social network relationships, to enhance consumer well-being (CWB) in subsistence marketplaces. Through interviews and contextualised observational research in rural Cambodia, findings reveal that the impacts of mobile money services on marketing interactions in relation to CWB can be categorised at two distinct levels. The first-level impact is the actual physical money transfer transactions as part of the marketing exchange activities which leads to the second-level impact on the social network relationships at interpersonal, social group and cultural levels. Drawing from these insights, policy-makers and industry stakeholders can formulate strategies and develop innovative service offerings through mobile phone technology to enhance CWB in subsistence marketplaces.

Fostering fair and sustainable marketing for social entrepreneurs in the context of subsistence marketplaces

In recent years, in-depth, on-the-ground research has generated many insights into the nature and functioning of subsistence marketplaces and the people who operate in them. Such knowledge is bound to be useful to various companies and organisations, as they seek to engage such marketplaces, particularly for marketing managers, who quite likely have not had education or experience in marketing in such impoverished settings. This paper complements these practical insights with a normative ethical framework, presented in the marketing literature and labelled the integrative justice model (IJM) for impoverished markets, so as to synthesise a new framework for fair and sustainable marketing for social entrepreneurs in the context of subsistence marketplaces.

Community-Based Initiatives and Poverty Alleviation in Subsistence Marketplaces

Despite the success of recent poverty alleviation efforts, millions remain entrapped by abject poverty. While many of these efforts have resulted in vastly improved lives for individuals and their close relations, the benefits for the community, as a whole, are less clear. This research draws on Resource-Advantage Theory to investigate the potential of community-based initiatives as a route to poverty alleviation in subsistence marketplaces. In particular, the viability of a collaborative, community-based solution is demonstrated through a case study detailing the outcome of reforestation measures in Mexico and Haiti. The findings suggest that the success of community-based initiatives in poverty alleviation efforts is predicated on combining market-oriented goals and a communal philosophy.

From Subsistence Marketplaces Up, from General Macromarketing Theories Down

Marketing researchers have recently begun exploring the specific context of subsistence marketplaces in developing and emerging economies using a bottom-up approach. Such literature offers an increasing number of conceptual frameworks and theoretical approaches derived from or inspired by a sound understanding of the real-life contexts of subsistence marketplaces. This article draws attention to a complementary top-down approach that begins from basic thinking on marketing’s contribution to development and, through midrange theories, eventually connects with bottom-up insights into subsistence marketplaces. The top-down approach helps create a unique theoretical midrange for development-oriented research in marketing that is complementary to other disciplines in the development debate. A bottom-up and top-down shaped theoretical midrange promises transformative interventions that can attend to the specific context at hand, while connecting with basic marketing principles on development.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Subsistence Marketplaces

As regular readers of the Journal of Macromarketing well know, macromarketing is an academic discipline broadly committed to the study of the interplay of markets, marketing and society (e.g., Hunt 1981). Macromarketing research, therefore, is particularly germane to environments in which people find themselves in subsistence living conditions. Indeed, for decades, macromarketers have studied distressed countries, regions, communities, and systems in which such conditions often are the norm with the intent of understanding them, and more importantly, improving life quality. Subsistence marketplace studies, with a bottom- up orientation, provide unique micro-level insights for macromarketing, sharing the primary concern of developing a sustainable and just marketing system in which prosperity and quality of life are enhanced for all who reside in the marketplace. What follows is an introduction to the articles that comprise this special issue on “Subsistence Marketplaces.”

Poverty and Intersectionality

Subsistence consumers are disadvantaged and marginalized on many levels, including financial deprivation, poor health, lack of access to resources, and social stigmatization. The disadvantages experienced by subsistence consumers are interconnected and co-constitutive; being disadvantaged in one domain often intersects with other disadvantages, contributing to an overall vulnerability within the market system. Drawing from the intersectionality paradigm, the authors examine an overlooked low-income community that shares elements of subsistence contexts. The findings reveal multiple ways in which a trailer park community residents experience and manage intertwined disadvantages. Several overlapping identity categories (i.e., socio-economic status, health status, and type of housing) vis-à-vis structural and relational dynamics are fleshed out. Implications for research on subsistence marketplaces and the usefulness of the intersectionality approach for macromarketing research are discussed.

The Subsistence Marketplace Initiative

The subsistence marketplace initiative is a marvelous endeavor, it is a program that combines three critical aspects well – research, action, and communication -- which are so essential for research impact. Its bottom up approach is sound. The challenge is scaling up for big impact and bring systemic change in an environment of deepening and entrenched inequality. This is essential for our collective survival: current practices and greed have resulted in economies collapsing in the western world with huge consequences for the choices we make, for our values, ethics, and vision of the kind of world we want to live in.

Implications of transaction cost on the consumer choice heuristics: a grounded theory analysis at the Indian bottom of the pyramid

The present study traces the implications of transaction cost on the consumer choice heuristics at the bottom of the pyramid. With the help of the grounded theory approach for theory generation, the study identifies that endowments like wide-spread low literacy and lack of 4As (awareness, availability, accessibility, and affordability) prompt the subsistence customers to minimise the transaction cost of purchase by resorting to bounded rationality, opportunism and locking-in effects. Such endeavours challenge the chronology of consumer decision-making process for convenience products and lead to an automatic choice of the interlinked market at the BoP even before evaluating the functional attributes of the brands of the required convenience products. Therefore, the findings of the study suggest that the choice of interlinked market limits the process of brand choice and forms an alternative choice heuristics in the subsistence market place.

Tourism as Catalyst for Quality of Life in Transitioning Subsistence Marketplaces

Tourism is a potential catalyst for transforming subsistence marketplaces, and the quality of life (QOL) for people who live in them. The authors share findings from a study on tourism development in Ha Long, Vietnam, a community transitioning from central economic planning and a focus on heavy and extractive industries, to one that is increasingly dominated by tourism and the industries, goods and services that support it. The authors used multiple methods to gain insights into QOL in Ha Long; those methods included site observations, depth interviews and data collection via an instrument designed and developed by the authors that quantifies perceptions of the evolution of residents’ well-being, including anticipated QOL. Findings indicate that a large majority of citizen-stakeholders in Ha Long generally feel life-quality has improved because of policy changes and subsequent tourism development. Concern is growing, however, that some environmental and societal degradation has accompanied positive economic outcomes. Marketing and policy implications, and opportunities for further research are discussed – not only for Ha Long, but for other actual or hopeful transitioning subsistence marketplaces whose leaders see tourism as a catalyst from economic hardship and subsistence-living toward enhanced QOL.

Subsistence and Sustainability

The objective of this article is to develop micro-level behavioral insights at the intersection of poverty and the environment and derive macro-marketing implications. This micro-level behavioral perspective encompasses psychological and socio-cultural phenomena and emphasizes consumption and conservation. Construing the environment in a broad sense to encompass living circumstances, we conducted interviews to uncover the distinctive nature of environmental issues in subsistence marketplaces. Our findings emphasize the importance of different levels of spatial and psychological distance as well as a number of coping strategies that reflect individuals and communities sustaining themselves through survival, relatedness, and growth. We link distances and coping to efficacy and motivation to act, and derive implications for macro-level issues in marketing management, and public policy.

The Impact of Social Support on Entrepreneurship in Subsistence Marketplaces

The objective of this study is to understand how social support impacts the development of women as entrepreneurs in subsistence marketplaces. The academic literature generally emphasizes how inclusion in a social network, a form of structural social support, enhances entrepreneurial development. However, entrepreneurs commonly undergo various forms of stress while maintaining their own businesses. Yet, a paucity of research remains on the ways that entrepreneurs overcome stressful situations, particularly via functional social support. Utilizing an ethnographic approach, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with members of self-help groups (SHGs) in India to explore this phenomenon. The authors advance theoretical propositions relating to how functional social support impacts the development of women as entrepreneurs. Recommendations for future research are also forwarded.

Enhancing entrepreneurial activities in BoP markets: Understanding the influence of poverty

This study contributes to our understanding of the influence of poverty on entrepreneurial activities in the informal economy. The informal economy, base of the pyramid (BoP), and subsistence marketplace literatures offer insights on how the BoP market segment could become customers. What this research has not yet addressed is why some potential consumers do not purchase a product. We examine this question using a framework that incorporates a multi-dimensional view of poverty. Using a rich and unique set of survey data collected from the BoP in the informal economy in the developing world, our results indicate that three dimensions of poverty – economic, capability, and relationship well-being – influence the likelihood of purchasing a product. Additionally, the influences of these poverty dimensions can vary, including by income level. These findings demonstrate that incorporating a multi-dimensional view of poverty can enhance our understanding of entrepreneurial activity, capability development, and consumer behavior in the informal economy.

Curricular innovations on sustainability and subsistence marketplaces: philosophical, substantive, and methodological orientations

Curricular innovations on sustainability and subsistence marketplaces: philosophical, substantive, and methodological orientations

Introduction to the Special Issue on transformative consumer research: Developing theory to mobilize efforts that improve consumer and societal well-being

The third biennial Transformative Consumer Research Conference at Baylor University in June 2011 encouraged consumer researchers from around the world to address some of the world's most pressing social and economic problems. Researchers discussed with conceptual rigor nine substantive areas: addiction; food for thought; innovative research methods; materialism; youth, risk and consumption; multicultural marketplaces; poverty and subsistence marketplaces; sustainable products; and transformative services research. This introductory paper summarizes the contributions of the post-conference articles on these nine areas that appear in this special issue, and it highlights the importance of conducting consumer research to obtain theoretically-grounded findings that offer practical solutions to serious human problems.

Marketing Interactions in Subsistence Marketplaces: A Bottom-Up Approach to Designing Public Policy

In many developing countries, buyer–seller exchange among the poor occurs mainly in unique, socially embedded environments that are essentially informal markets. This article describes the findings of an in-depth, in situ study of an informal-economy subsistence marketplace in South India. Through interviews with consumers and owners of survivalist microenterprises, the authors identify seven themes that characterize the subsistence marketplace context, buyer–seller interactions within them, and specific elements of exchange. Drawing on these findings, along with theories of social capital and consumption in poverty, they make the case that business policy in developing countries should aim to empower subsistence entrepreneurs and consumers, embrace emergent solutions, help build bridges between informal and formal economies, and adopt a bottom-up orientation to policy development. The study's findings offer important insights into policy that can help microenterprises of the informal economy become engines of economic growth in these countries.