MBA 546 Global Business Horizons

marketplace literacy

A form of education that emphasizes know-why understanding (why to do) about marketplaces as basis for know-how (what to do). The goal of the education is about being informed consumers or entrepreneurs.

service economies

Emphasize meeting consumer needs as services and treating goods as means of service delivery, for instance, cab services.

culturally sensitive

Solutions that are harmonious with the local cultural mores.

leveraging existing infrastructure

Solutions that make use of existing infrastructure rather than relying on new infrastructure to be built.

one-to-one interaction

Two individuals carrying out a verbal face-to-face interaction.

drivers

The factors that engender the need in local context.

enterprise

A company or firm organized for commercial purpose.

business plan

A document that specifies the details of how the product/service will be delivered in an economically viable manner in order to fulfill the locally salient needs.

finite resource

A non-renewable resource that does not renew itself at a sufficient rate compared to its rate of consumption. For example, fossil fuels.

self-esteem

A person's emotional evaluation of his or her own worth.

marketplace

A place where buyers and sellers interact (directly or through intermediaries) to trade goods, services, contracts, or instruments for money.

core solution

A product or service that promises to meet the salient needs in the context.

Sun Oven

A social enterprise based out of Illinois that produces solar cooker for subsistence marketplaces and affluent marketplaces

story boarding

A step-by-step depiction of the process involved in using a product/solution.

equity

A stock or any other security that represents an ownership interest. For example, ownership in a private company may be called a private equity. Similarly, stock equity is used for a publicly traded company.

ecology

A study of relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.

concrete thinking (reasoning)

A style of thinking where individuals are focused on the 'here and now.' Individuals with a tendency to reason concretely often fail to combine different pieces of information in making decisions. For example, a person who always buys the cheapest carton of milk without considering the size of the carton is engaging in concrete reasoning.

know-how

A type of understanding that emphasizes how to do things most effectively.

know-why

A type of understanding that emphasizes why things operate the way they do.

communication and delivery of value proposition

A value proposition is a promise of benefit to be delivered and acknowledged. With communicating and creating awareness, the solution is delivered to users in subsistence marketplaces. Communication of value proposition refers to the process of clearly conveying the "give" and the "get" -the benefits of the solution to the target consumers and the costs involved. Delivery of value proposition refers to how the product will get to the consumer.

exchange model

A visual depiction of various entities involved in the business model along with the exchanges that characterize the relationship between the entities.

population explosion

An accelerated increase in the human population after the 1950s due to decreasing mortality and increasing birth rates supported by better health care, higher incomes, etc.

natural capitalism

An approach to business that fully values all sources of capital but places special emphasis on building both natural and human capital.

base-of-the-pyramid

Approach to poverty that emphasizes how businesses can deliver essential services in contexts of poverty in a way that creates both economic and social value.

ecological footprint

Compares the environmental impact of specific actions to the limitations of the earth's natural resources and ecosystems functionality.

positioning map

Compares the relative strength of alternative solutions on a selected set of dimensions.

basic needs

Basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, and clothing

coping

Behaviors in which individuals engage in order to respond to a stressful event.

low-literacy

Captures the level of formal education received by individuals. Being low literate does not limit individuals from possessing highly developed skills in other areas of life.

relationships

Connections between people (Dictionary.com). In subsistence marketplaces they occur in a one-to-one interactional environment where there is much interdependence and oral communication.

subsistence marketplaces

Consist of individuals (consumers, entrepreneurs) and communities in the range of low-income levels (Rosa & Viswanathan, 2007). It covers the range from those barely surviving to those close to moving up to the lower middle class.

subsistence marketplaces

Consist of individuals (consumers, entrepreneurs) and communities in the range of low-income levels (Rosa and Viswanathan, 2007). They cover the range from those barely surviving to those close to moving up to the lower middle class. Such marketplaces can be seen in developing countries and regions (Brazil, India, China, Vietnam, and sub-Saharan Africa). Such marketplaces can also be seen in developed nations.

doing well

Creating financial value.

doing good

Creating social value.

macroeconomic approaches

Deal with economies at an aggregate level.

bottom-up design

Designing products using the bottom-up approach.

retailer

Economic entities that sell products to end-customers in small portions.

fluid transaction

Elements of each transaction are worked out in a fluid manner (as opposed to being predetermined) based on the situation at hand.

privacy

Ensuring that the informants responses are not revealed to others in the setting.

bottom-up approach

Entails a micro-level understanding of life circumstances in poverty. These micro-level insights are then aggregated in order to generate higher order insights for product development and ultimately sustainable development.

subsistence entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs with low income who participate in income-generating and related activities to meet basic needs or operate small businesses in contexts of poverty, for the primary purpose of survival. (Viswanathan et al., 2014). They are "means" entrepreneurs, rather than "ends" entrepreneurs, in the sense of using very limited means to find ways to meet needs.

emotional issues

Factors related to an informant's feelings that have a bearing on the quality of insights gained.

cognitive issues

Factors related to an informant's thinking that have a bearing on the quality of insights gained.

administrative issues

Factors related to the administration of research activities that have a bearing on the quality of insights gained.

context

Factors related to the broader context within which the need is felt.

merchandise

General goods to be bought and sold.

emotion

How individuals feel (as opposed to how individuals think).

cognition

How individuals think and process information.

ecosystem

In a broader sense, a community/societal level living system. Specific to its usage in this course; aspects of the living system that enable more effective use of the product.

feeling

In general, the term 'feeling' refers to an emotional state or reaction. In the case of subsistence marketplaces, it refers to emotional states engendered in consumers and entrepreneurs by contextually salient factors in subsistence such as resource or literacy constraints.

design of ecosystems

In the context of the course, ecosystems refer to factors in the surrounding environment outside of the product that go around the core and augmented solution, and provide the support structure needed for the solution to be effective and sustainable. For subsistence marketplace incumbents, the infrastructure, community, network, customer support, and education are components of the design of ecosystems.

affordability

Inability to purchase a valuable product/service due to lack of financial resources.

transactions

Individual acts of exchange that occur between individuals.

entrepreneurs

Individuals who combine resources in creative ways in order to meet a need in the marketplace.

consumers

Individuals who purchase products or services in the marketplace in order to satisfy their needs.

demographic information

Information that captures characteristics of the individual such as age, gender, ethnicity, education level, and income level.

reverse innovation

Innovation originating in resource constrained developing nations leading to innovation in developed nations.

product stewardship

Integrating stakeholders or anyone who is involved in the whole lifecycle of the product to minimize the effect the product has on environment, health, and safety.

interactional empathy

Interactions that emphasize the human dimension within economic exchange.

idea generation

Is the first step in designing and delivering the solution to subsistence marketplaces. Ideas represent outlines of potential solutions generated in light of insights about the marketplace. The process involves extensive analyses of customer needs, seen through the specific lens of product usage situations.

soil erosion

It refers to the wearing away of a field's topsoil by the natural physical forces of water and wind or through forces associated with farming activities, such as tillage.

localize

Localizing the educational material to reflect the sociocultural realities of the participants in the education program.

radical resource productivity

Making the most of limited, irreplaceable resources, leading to slower depletion of natural resources, reduced pollution, and increased employment; recycling, composting.

marketplaces

Marketplaces are spaces where economic exchange is carried out between buyers and sellers. Marketplaces have many manifestations. They may be formal or informal, monetary or barter based, physical or virtual.

aspirational needs

Needs that relate to consumers' aspirations/strong desires as opposed to consumers' basic needs.

pictographic thinking

Occurs when individuals code and process information in their memory as pictures. For example, someone who remembers a bus number as a picture will be engaging in pictographic thinking.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization at the top. The most fundamental and basic four layers of the pyramid contain what Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "d-needs": esteem, friendship and love, security, and physical needs.

control

One's perceived ability in taking corrective action to address the environmental issue.

multipurpose

Products that serve multiple purposes.

ROI (Return on Investment)

ROI is usually expressed as a percentage and is typically used for financial decisions to compare the efficiency of different investments. It gives a measure of how much profit or return is made from every single unit of investment.

biomimicry

Redesigning of industrial processes according to biological models. For example, cradle-to-cradle design in which industrial and consumer waste is recovered and returned to productive use.

enterprise plan

Refers to a business plan, although the former is for both commercial and social enterprises. The enterprise plan is a comprehensive document that contains the details of the core solution, the augmented solution, and the design of ecosystem elements. The document also captures the exchange model, i.e., the exchanges occurring between key entities involved in the creation, communication, and delivery of value in a sustainable manner.

subsistence consumers

Refers to individuals, households, or communities in the range of low income (Viswanathan and Venugopal, Forthcoming).

motivation

Refers to one's motivation to take corrective actions to address the environmental issue.

forego

Refers to the act of foregoing purchase of a product or service.

group influences

Refers to the influence of one's group affiliations on individual behaviors.

decision heuristics

Simple, efficient rules which people often use to form judgments and make decisions. They are mental shortcuts that usually involve focusing on one aspect of a complex problem and ignoring others

leapfrogging

Skipping multiple generations of technology to the latest version.

bottom-up emersion

Submerging in a fundamentally different setting and reemerging to consider concepts originally learned in a discipline and how they need to be stretched or a new concepted need to be developed in the fundamentally different setting.

products

Tangible offerings in the marketplace that fulfill certain customer needs.

The Natural Step Framework (TNSF)

The TNSF is based on a set of four guiding principles from thermodynamics and natural cycles that provides concrete guidelines for planning sustainable processes.

compliance

The act or process of complying to a desire, demand, proposal, or regimen or to coercion; generally, to official requirements such as laws and regulations of the land.

exchange

The act wherein two parties exchange items (e.g., cash, products, services) in a way that creates mutual value.

interdependence

The condition of life where the quality of individual outcomes is reciprocally dependent on the actions of others.

local environment

The immediate environment within which individuals are embedded.

eco footprint

The impact of human activities measured in terms of the area of biologically productive land and water required to produce the goods consumed and to assimilate the wastes generated. More simply, it is the amount of the environment necessary to produce the goods and services necessary to support a particular lifestyle.

sustainable outcomes

The impact of the proposed business on people, the planet, and profits.

environmental issues in subsistence marketplaces

The issues related to the physical environment that people living in subsistence marketplace deal with on a daily basis. These issues range from water supply, waste management, energy consumption, pollution, and many more. Environmental issues range from the immediate to the local, societal, and global.

exchange relationship

The marketing context refers to the enduring engagement between a buyer and a seller that is characterized by repeated interactions and purchases.

buyer-seller responsiveness

The notion of responsiveness captures the degree to which individual buyers and sellers adjust their offerings/behaviors in order to meet each other's specific needs.

psychological distance

The perceived distance between one's own life and a specific environmental issue being considered.

markets

The physical or virtual space where sellers and buyers interact to fulfill their needs. Sellers (street vendors or store owners) brings items to sell, and buyers approach them to buy goods and services on cash or credit.

evaluation of solutions

The process of comparing different solutions and finding the best available solutions. Evaluation criteria are developed and solutions are ranked accordingly.

subsistence

The qualitative nature of life circumstances where the ability to meet basic needs of life is under threat.

drivers

The reasons why a specific need is stark; the cause for a problem or need to exist.

research methods in subsistence marketplaces

The set of activities employed to gain insights into a context or generate solutions for a context. Research methods vary on sources of information that are drawn on, how that information is sampled, and the types of instruments that are used in data collection. Methods also vary by whether they collect qualitative data, quantitative data, or both. The objective of research methods in subsistence marketplaces is to better understand the individuals, communities, and the larger context beginning at a micro level.

need

The unfulfilled need that is most salient in the context.

cognitive predilections

Thinking tendencies or patterns/ways of thinking.

suppliers

Vendors from whom an entrepreneur buys products or services in order to be resold to end-customers.

bottom-up immersion

Virtual and actual immersion beginning at the micro-level; suspending preconceived notions, allowing for independent learning, and moving from sympathy and informed empathy; learning through observation, and conversation, starting at the micro-level of life circumstances.