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Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:22:11 -0600
From: "Madhu Viswanathan" <mviswana@uiuc.edu>
Subject: CFP: Subsistence Marketplaces, Chicago, Aug’06

Call For Papers

Product and Market Development For Subsistence Marketplaces: Consumption and Entrepreneurship Beyond Literacy and Resource  Barriers

August 2-4, 2006, University of Illinois, Chicago

Conference Chairs

Madhu Viswanathan
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
61 Wohlers Hall
1206 South Sixth St.
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217-333-4550
E-mail: mviswana@uiuc.edu

José Antonio Rosa
University of Illinois at Chicago
601 South Morgan St.  MC 243
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone:  312-413-9362
E-mail: jarosa@uic.edu

Description

Over 4 billion subsistence marketplace consumers (earning less than two dollars per day) exhibit behaviors such as budgeting, savings, managing credit, and planning for durable goods purchases.  In spite of low incomes, these consumers manage to purchase goods and services, pay for the education of children and other family members, and accumulate savings.  Many achieve these and similar objectives by managing their own small businesses, a phenomenon that in turn gives rise to an intertwining of buyer/seller roles that is seldom seen outside of subsistence environments.  Responding adequately to the needs of these subsistence buyer/sellers requires that business theory and practice incorporate factors such as scarce resource allocation and levels of literacy and numeracy, and address questions such as: What characterizes subsistence buyer/sellers across the countries they represent?  How do subsistence buyer/sellers 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 responses to new product concepts, promotional tactics, and distribution channel innovation?

We envision a conference focused on these and related questions, a synergistic combination of keynote addresses and presentations from invited academicians and practitioners, and presentations of conceptual and empirical research submitted in response to this call.[1]  The first few sessions of the conference will reflect its distinctive positioning as a bottom-up approach to understanding subsistence marketplaces and provide the foundation for the rest of the conference.  The aim of these sessions is immersion in the distinct contexts of subsistence marketplaces, with particular emphasis on buyer/seller behavior.  Sessions relating to specific topic areas in product and market development, including distribution and product development, will follow.  Concluding sessions will emphasize business practice and pedagogy.

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.

The Individual Consumer and the Buyer/Seller

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
• Family – nuclear and extended
• Neighbors/Competitors and Communities
• Other Subsistence Vendors and Service Providers
• Needs, Values and Motivations as Persistent Influencers
• Specific Consequences of Literacy and Poverty for Buyer and Seller Behavior

Market Research Methods

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

Marketing/Business Functions Responsible for Delivering Value

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

Submissions for Conference Presentation

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).

Submissions for Publication as Book Chapters

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

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).

[1]To further delineate our focus, it should be noted that some research areas overlap with our topic, yet might not be appropriate for the conference unless they focus specifically on subsistence marketplaces.  Such parallel areas include cross-cultural research, and marketing in developing or transitional economies.  However, research in these areas that addresses the need for understanding subsistence marketplaces is welcome.

Madhu Viswanathan
Associate Professor of Bus. Admin. (Marketing)
University of Illinois
College of Business
61 Wohlers Hall
1206 South Sixth Street
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217-333-4550
Fax: 217-244-7969
email: mviswana@uiuc.edu