"Base of the Pyramid" conference

Hello CB scholars,

In class the other day, we talked about marketing products and services to the least wealthy segments of global society.

The next day, I received a call for papers for an international conference that addresses this exact issue.

"Prahalad and Hart (1998) initiated a stream of research and activity that has presented the world’s poor as an opportunity for innovation, partnerships and profitable growth. Others have raised concerns with this market-development approach and pointed to limited empirical research (Karnani, 2007; Landrum, 2007). Some initiatives have begun tracking the efforts of MNCs [multinational corporations] in the base of the pyramid (BoP) and suggest a second generation of corporate BoP strategies that include “co-invention and business co-creation” (Simanis and Hart, 2008, 2).

This conference will bring together academic researchers, especially those working across Southern Africa, to deepen our understanding of how organisations can more effectively engage in the BoP. The conference will provide an opportunity for researchers to present conceptual and empirical papers across a range of topics related to the BoP context."

Cool, huh? I guess that's the reason they keep coming out with new versions of the textbook every year or so...

Have a wonderful weekend,

Graham