José Antonio Rosa
Madhu Viswanathan
University of Illinois at Chicago University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
jarosa@uic.edu
mviswana@uiuc.edu
Over 4 billion consumers in the global
marketplace earn less than two dollars per day. In spite of their low income, these consumers manage to
purchase goods and services, secure financing for large purchases and homes,
pay for the education of their children and other family members, and
accumulate savings; many of them achieving these and similar objectives by
managing their own small business.
These consumer entrepreneurs represent billions of dollars in investment,
spending and saving power, and have largely been ignored by global providers of
goods and services. Responding
adequately to their needs requires that business theory and practice
incorporate issues of resource allocation and availability, family support,
literacy, and poverty, and address questions such as:
· What are the common and distinctive characteristics of low
income/low education consumer/merchants across the many countries they
represent?
· How do these consumer/merchants make decisions about purchases and
investments, and participate in the global marketplace?
· How should products, services, and distribution systems be
designed for them?
· How should market research be designed to accurately capture
customer responses to new product and service concepts, promotional tactics,
and distribution channel innovation?
· How can micro-entrepreneurs among these largely ignored groups
participate in value chains and the wealth creation process?
These are some of the topics that we expect
to cover in the conference, in pursuit of which we have invited distinguished
academicians. We are planning a
small conference to allow for interaction and dialogue among a mix of
academicians and practitioners who are interested in issues relating to these
unique consumer/merchants, and who are willing to share their research and
ideas in an energizing environment.
The conference is designed to promote
conversation and inspire collaboration.
It will be held at the University of Illinois at Chicago, chosen because of UIC’s long-standing tradition of
socially minded research across its many colleges and departments, the vibrancy
of its surroundings, and its metropolitan highly accessible setting. The conference is jointly sponsored by
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with its rich
multi-disciplinary traditions and pioneering initiatives for product and market
development for subsistence marketplaces.
The conference will run from Wednesday evening to Friday, with keynote
addresses on Thursday and Friday and possible concurrent sessions, depending on
the number of papers submitted.
The proposed schedule allows for a dynamic and fast moving conference,
along with adequate opportunities for our guests to enjoy the great city of
Chicago. Finally, a book of
selected chapters from among conference presentations is planned. Please email one of the conference
chairs for more information.
Call
For Papers
Developing
products and business processes to serve subsistence marketplaces is a
significant challenge for 21st century companies. Early evidence suggests that the manner
in which subsistence consumers process information, navigate buying/selling
environments, and make decisions can be very different from those of
non-subsistence consumers.
Theories primarily developed through research in industrialized
economies stem from many fundamental assumptions that may not hold in subsistence
economies. Our primary objective,
and the overarching standard against which submissions will be evaluated, is to
elucidate some of the assumptions and theories that must be altered for firms
to better understand subsistence consumers, and to jumpstart the development of
new theories, frameworks, and models in this area. To that end, we choose as a starting point the individual
buyer and seller, and work upwards across levels of aggregation in our targeted
themes. Our bottom-up approach
begins with buyers, sellers, and marketplace behaviors in subsistence
marketplaces in contrast to top-down approaches that adopt a macro-level
perspective. Three wide-ranging
topics, and possible sub-topics for submissions are the following.
Given the urgent need to better
understand subsistence consumers and subsistence buyer/sellers, the following
is a subset of topics of interest:
·
Consumer and Buyer/Seller Decision Processes
·
Processing of Text, Pictorial and Numerical Information
· External
Influences on Processing and Decisions
o Family –
nuclear and extended
o Neighbors/Competitors
and Communities
o Other
Subsistence Vendors and Service Providers
· Needs, Values
and Motivations as Persistent Influencers
· Specific
Consequences of Literacy and Poverty for Buyer and Seller Behavior
With the exception of methods rooted
in anthropological research that have provided most of the insight available
thus far into subsistence consumers, almost all research methods employed by
academicians and organizations to better understand consumers and
buyers/sellers take for granted certain levels of literacy, knowledge and a
learning orientation that is endemic to industrialized economies, but seldom
representative of subsistence consumers.
Some broad research areas that emerge from this deficiency are:
· Methods that
capture relative differences in beliefs and attitudes that do not rely on text
and numerical symbols to convey meaningful distinctions
· Non-intrusive
observational methods that produce quantitative data suitable for
multidimensional scaling, preference mapping, and other psychographic
techniques
· Experimental
methods that allow for the testing of product attributes, environmental
variables, and other elements of business practice
· Qualitative
research methods customized to low levels of literacy and income
The challenge of delivering value to
subsistence marketplaces includes goods and services targeted to different
subsistence segments and developed to be compatible with their lives, borne by
supply chains that respond quickly and uniquely to subsistence lifestyles and
associated realities, communicated effectively and truthfully without
condescension or disempowering patronization, and priced affordably. These
objectives must be achieved profitably, not only for initiating companies, but
also for other involved stakeholders such as resellers and intermediaries. Academic and practitioner research
across business functional areas focused on ways to deliver value to
subsistence consumers is welcome, with preference given to those topics and
approaches most consistent with individual buyers and sellers as the starting
point.
· Technology
Identification, Product Design, Development, and Testing
· Distribution
· Promotion and
Pricing
· Roles of
Subsistence Buyer/Sellers in Business Processes and Value Creation
All
authors are asked to submit a two-page abstract, from which acceptance
decisions will be made and preliminary session planning will be carried
out. It is suggested that the
number of references be limited and included at the end of the text.
Submission Deadline for Two-Page Extended Abstracts: March 15, 2006
Notification: April 15, 2006
Submission Requirements:
Page 1: Title,
author, and full contact information (including e-mail).
Pages 2-3: Double-spaced
abstract of the paper
To be submitted as Word
attachments via e-mail to both co-chairs (mviswana@uiuc.edu and jarosa@uic.edu).
Presentations accompanied by full
papers will be considered for possible publication in a book emerging from the
conference. The book will be part
of the Advances in International Management series, published by Elsevier
(http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/BS_ADVIM/description#description)
in 2007. Authors interested in
having their papers published must submit a full draft prior to the conference
and notify the chairs of their intent to do so when submitting abstracts. The revised manuscripts submitted after
the conference will be peer-reviewed for content and stylistic adequacy and may
require revision prior to final acceptance.
Submission Deadline for Full Drafts: July 24, 2006
Notification: September 1, 2006 -
Deadline for revised papers after incorporation of comments from
conference participants and
conference chairs
December
1, 2006 - Feedback to authors after peer review
January
15, 2007 – Final deadline for revised submission
Submission Requirements:
Page 1: Title,
author, and full contact information (including e-mail).
Pages 2-30: Double-spaced
paper not to exceed 30 pages including references, appendices, and exhibits.
To be submitted as Word
attachments via e-mail to both co-chairs (mviswana@uiuc.edu and jarosa@uic.edu).
Conference Sponsors
We thank the sponsors of this conference listed below.
College of Business, University
of Illinois at Chicago
College of Business, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Center for International Business and
Education Research,
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Department of Business Administration,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Walter H.
Stellner Marketing Lecture Fund, University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign