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Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine whether there exists employee-client matching at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) and the most favourable employee-client categorization in terms of employee productivity when serving the BOP market. This is important in a bid to determine how to effectively operate at the BOP given the market’s unique characteristics. Design/methodology/approach This study uses two methods depending on the research question. First, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to determine the different employee-client categories based on socio-economic status. Second, fixed effects analyses are performed based on these categories to determine the most suitable employee-client category. Findings The results show the existence of employee-client matching based on similar socio-economic status. However, multivariate testing reveals that the mismatch category, where employees are of higher socioeconomic status than the clients, generates more favourable employee productivity. Moreover, this result may be contingent on the geographical location of the firm. Practical implications The findings are important for human resource management particularly the employment strategy of BOP firms. It suggests the need to consider employee profiles and client profiles when deciding which new markets to target. Originality/value The paper uses a global database of microfinance institutions as a case of BOP firms to investigate employee-client matching at the bottom of the pyramid.

This paper examines the effect of the gender combination of client-loan officer pairs on loan repayment in an Ecuadorian microfinance institution. We show that among the four possible clientloan officer gender pairs i.e., female client-female loan officer, female client-male loan officer, male client-male loan officer and male client-female loan officer, the most favorable pairs in terms of repayment are those with female loan officers whereas the least favorable are those with male loan officers. We also show that repayment is even further enhanced for all client-loan officer pairs when the client's previous loan officer was a woman. Our findings point to relational differences between male and female loan officers when interacting with microfinance clients, which is also highlighted by our qualitative insights from the field.

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