Envisioning a community‐centric approach to impact assessments in subsistence marketplaces

Abstract

What does a community‐centric approach to impact assessment look like? That is the central question addressed in this article. Our community‐centric perspective provides an alternative to discipline‐centric approaches to impact assessment that emphasize specific methodological gold‐standards (e.g., randomized controlled trials [RCTs] in development economics). Disciplinary approaches to impact assessment owe their principal allegiance to the discipline's knowledge‐creation norms. Consequently, the concerns, interests, and voices of community members are not fully captured in the impact assessment process. In this article, we flip the conventional perspective to offer a community‐centric view of impact assessment that places the concerns, interests and voices of community members front and center. We present the case for why we need a community‐centric approach to impact assessment and clarify its axiological content, theoretical perspective, and methodological stance. Specifically, we advocate for a relational axiology, a system‐theoretic perspective, and a phenomenological methodology.

Drivers, Barriers, and Facilitators of Entrepreneurship at BoP: Review, Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda

“…Table 7 provides some recommendations for enhancing well-being of subsistence consumer entrepreneurs. It can advance the much-needed systems thinking in designing and evaluating various business and development interventions in subsistence contexts (Peterson 2006; Venugopal 2021). For instance, the nuanced understanding facilitated by the conceptual framework can aid in designing context informed, effective and efficient market creation and marketing system shaping interventions that can enhance subsistence entrepreneurs’ capabilities and power for facilitating their exercise of agency (Azmat, Ferdous, and Couchman 2015; Jagadale, Kadirov, and Chakraborty 2018; Lindeman 2012).…”

“…Moreover, policymakers should adopt a systemic approach, factor in path dependencies of marketing systems for designing interventions and anticipating likely outcomes of interventions (Hounhouigan et al 2014; Layton and Duffy 2018; Wooliscroft 2021). Moreover, policy formulation, implementation, and impact assessment should be considered as an iterative, cyclical process wherein the goal of impact assessment should be to provide feedback and inputs to the next phase of policy formulation and implementation (Upadhyaya 2020; Venugopal 2021).…”

“…Besides these facilitators and barriers, some contextual factors can potentially manifest as barriers or facilitators. For instance, Venugopal (2021) illustrates the potential dual nature of several BoP interventions, as they provide short-term benefits but harm BoP communities in the long run. Similar observations have been made regarding entrepreneurship promotion policies (Hall et al 2012), formalization initiatives and social capital (Ansari, Munir, and Gregg 2012; Barrios and Blocker 2015; Kistruck et al 2015), among others.…”

The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on subsistence consumers' well‐being and coping strategies: Insights from India and Bangladesh

“…Affluent consumers have financial literacy and sufficiency and so they can manage their expenditures with less anxiety (Mani et al, 2013 ), while SCs are often financially vulnerable due to poor financial literacy and financial adequacy (Askar et al, 2020 ). Further, SCs do not possess the financial resources to prevent shocks whereas affluent consumers can maintain their consumption practices even during job loss because they can draw resources either from their savings or from the credit market (Venugopal, 2021 ; Venugopal et al, 2015 ). Unfortunately, the life events of SCs are full of twists and turns; they have to face exploitation, discrimination, un‐dignifying disrespect, and stigmatization (Farrell & Hill, 2018 ; Jagadale et al, 2021 ).…”

“…As such, the life events of SCs are full of twists and turns. In a similar vein, recent research suggests that SCs do not possess the financial resources to prevent shocks whereas affluent consumers can maintain their consumption practices either even during job loss because they can draw resources from their savings or from the credit market (Venugopal, 2021 ). In their studies on Indian SCs, Jagadale et al ( 2021 ) have also argued that futurization is associated to sacrifice present comfort to reach a better future life in the affluent context whereas it is quite opposite in the subsistence context.…”