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‘Business Unusual’: Building BoP 3.0

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Abstract

With over three billion people currently living below the poverty line, finding better ways to lift people out of poverty is a concern of scholars from a range of disciplines. Within Management Studies, the focus is on developing market-based solutions to poverty alleviation through Bottom/Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) initiatives. To date, these have enjoyed limited success, sometimes even exacerbating the problems they attempt to solve. As a result, there is a growing academic and practitioner push for a third iteration—BoP 3.0—that moves closer to a sustainable development model of poverty alleviation. Through a grounded theory study of 21 Philippines-based organizations implementing poverty alleviation initiatives at the community level, this paper seeks to add to the existing suite of tools and guidance in the BoP field. It does so by questioning how these organizations approach the development and implementation of market-based approaches to poverty alleviation. Our results suggest that these organizations adopt a more community-centric approach, focusing on the creation of a self-reliant community before all else. We find this to be the result of a deeper understanding of the drivers of poverty in the communities they work with. Through the extrapolation of key themes and issues in our data, we propose a new conceptual model for building BoP 3.0 initiatives. This model consists of three intertwined theoretical dimensions: understanding issues as matters of concern; identifying limitations; and navigating time. These elements are linked by three active phases that allowed the organizations to move from one dimension to the next: sensemaking; entrainment; and investment.

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Notes

  1. Shah, Anup. “Poverty Facts and Stats – Global Issues.” http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats. Accessed on 21 February 2017.

  2. The new propositions for changes to the BoP approach have been labeled several ways, including as impact BoP enterprises (London 2016), BoP 3.0 (Cañeque and Hart 2015), and BoP 4.0 (Gupta and Khilji 2013). We incorporate these ideas as BoP 3.0 to maintain the nomenclature used for the BoP to date. Further, BoP 3.0 is by far the most followed and accepted name (e.g., Cañeque and Hart 2015; Cieslik 2016; Mason et al. 2017; Yurdakul et al. 2017).

  3. World Bank (2015). http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/home/ (accessed 21 February, 2017).

  4. While the evolving BoP 3.0 approach overlaps to some extent with social entrepreneurship, in the sense that both represent a market-based approach to solving poverty, it remains different in its focus. Rather than being an additional revenue stream for NGOs or relying partially on grants and donations and other forms of support from non-market actors, as many social enterprises do (Cañeque and Hart 2015; Cieslik 2016; Dasgupta and Hart 2015), BoP 3.0 is instead more focused on the development of inclusive and self-reliant businesses that have the potential to grow.

  5. https://www.adb.org/countries/philippines/poverty, accessed 19 February 2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management and Marketing, The Spot, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Danielle A. Chmielewski

  2. Centre for Social Impact Swinburne, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122, Australia

    Krzysztof Dembek

  3. School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, John Medley Building, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Jennifer R. Beckett

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  1. Danielle A. Chmielewski
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  2. Krzysztof Dembek
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  3. Jennifer R. Beckett
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Correspondence to Krzysztof Dembek.

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Conflict of interest

Danielle A. Chmielewski declares she has no conflicts of interests. Krzysztof Dembek has received research grants from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (Grant number 81,181,978) and from the Melbourne School of Government (grant number N/A). Jennifer R. Beckett declares she has no conflicts of interests.

Appendix 1: Interview Protocol

Appendix 1: Interview Protocol

Interview guide and questions

Greet the interviewee, introduce the project and its requirements and goals. Inform them about data collection and analysis and sign documents.

  1. 1.

    Introduction—ask the interviewee to present himself/herself, ask about the history of the organization, and how the interviewee got involved in it and what he/she does.

  2. 2.

    Problem addressed—ask about the problem the organization addresses, what it looks like.

  3. 3.

    Motivation—ask why the interviewee decided to address the problem.

  4. 4.

    How problem is addressed—ask about how the problem is addressed (ask about the details of activities that address the problem, what they are, who performs them etc.), prompt information about collaborations if this has not emerged yet.

  5. 5.

    Finances and profits—ask about the finances of the organization—how it earns money, what are the costs and income streams, is the organization profitable, if this is not clear, prompt information on how addressing the problem influences finances, etc.

  6. 6.

    Trade offs and tensions—if not clear yet, prompt information about the potential tension the organization experiences, any difficult decisions to be made?

  7. 7.

    Value capture (stakeholder + value capture mechanism)—If not clear yet, ask about how the communities and different stakeholders benefit over time (pay special attention to the mechanisms that ensure the communities and other stakeholders benefit from being involved in the organization).

  8. 8.

    Definition of success—ask about the definition of success in the organization. Pay attention to the timeframe of success.

  9. 9.

    Measurement and outcomes—ask whether there are any measures of success in place and whether and how the organization measures its success (what indicators are used—ask for an example) what are the outcomes so far?

  10. 10.

    Examples of what worked and did not work—ask for examples of what worked really well and what did not work and why.

  11. 11.

    What is needed to achieve success—prompt information about success factors and obstacles.

  12. 12.

    Additional details—ask whether any important details were omitted and ask if the interviewee wants do add or change anything?

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Chmielewski, D.A., Dembek, K. & Beckett, J.R. ‘Business Unusual’: Building BoP 3.0. J Bus Ethics 161, 211–229 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3938-7

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