Investigating the causal configurations of cost-efficient firms at the bottom of the pyramid

Shubhabrata Basu, Surender Munjal, Ashish Malik, Demetris Vrontis

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    This study highlights how social and commercial enterprises with local and global presence, balance their economic and social goals, to sustainably serve the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) markets, predominantly in emerging economies. Employing the lens of transaction cost economics and configurational theory, we propose that successful venturing into the BoP markets, sensitize firms to create appropriate governance mechanisms for reducing transaction costs, resulting in creation and capture of values. Further, these mechanisms enable those firms to attain cost efficiency and sustainability in the process of fulfilling their social objectives. To that end, we employed the case survey method to analyse 42 cases, from the Harvard Business School repository, on multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging economies. Further, we used qualitative comparative analysis to uncover the various causal governance configurations that enabled those firms to sustainably serve the BoP markets.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number101810
    JournalInternational Business Review
    DOIs
    Publication statusAccepted/In press - 2021

    Keywords

    • Bottom-of-the-pyramid
    • Causal configurations
    • Fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis
    • Social and commercial enterprises
    • Transaction cost

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