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Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to change consumer behavior. However, despite billions of consumers using mobile smart phones, adoption of (artificial) intelligent voice assistants, like Siri, is relatively low. A conceptual model was constructed to determine the influence of consumer trust, interaction, perceived risk, and novelty value on brand loyalty for AI supported devices. Using the MTurk platform, data was collected from a sample of 675 Apple iPhone-using respondents. The findings showed perceived risk seems to have a significantly negative influence on brand loyalty; however, other factors were found to have a significantly positive influence on brand loyalty. The influence of novelty value of using Siri was found to be moderated by brand involvement and consumer innovativeness in such a way the influence is greater for consumers who are less involved with the brand and who are more innovative

Purpose – To enhance the understanding of the moderating influence of different bottom of the pyramid (BOP) income segments on the antecedents of pro-poor innovation acceptance. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, 320 BOP consumers with a range of low-to-moderate literacy and low-income levels were used as a convenience non-probability sample for undertaking quantitative analyses. Findings – Only the influence of perceived usefulness on intention is moderated by income segments, such that the effect will be stronger for low-income BOP segment. Moreover, the influences of relative advantage, compatibility and observability on intention are moderated by income segments. Practical implications – This empirical work has considerable private sector and public policy implications for companies and government designing/selling products for millions of poor people in developing and emerging economies. Originality/value – This study contributes originally to knowledge in the subject area as there are very few studies that clearly and systematically analyse the key antecedents influencing the adoption intention of pro-poor technological innovations in the BOP market.

Purpose – To enhance the understanding of the moderating influence of different bottom of the pyramid (BOP) income segments on the antecedents of pro-poor innovation acceptance. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, 320 BOP consumers with a range of low-to-moderate literacy and low-income levels were used as a convenience non-probability sample for undertaking quantitative analyses. Findings – Only the influence of perceived usefulness on intention is moderated by income segments, such that the effect will be stronger for low-income BOP segment. Moreover, the influences of relative advantage, compatibility and observability on intention are moderated by income segments. Practical implications – This empirical work has considerable private sector and public policy implications for companies and government designing/selling products for millions of poor people in developing and emerging economies. Originality/value – This study contributes originally to knowledge in the subject area as there are very few studies that clearly and systematically analyse the key antecedents influencing the adoption intention of pro-poor technological innovations in the BOP market.

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how visual comprehensibility of a product can affect innovation adoption among the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach – This is an exploratory qualitative study based on interviews with eight managerial respondents involved in the design and marketing of innovative products targeted at BOP consumers in Bangladesh and three respondents who are consumers of these products. Findings – One key finding from this research, in comparison to innovation adoption research in developed contexts, is the distinct importance that BOP consumers attach to visual cues in learning about and understanding a new product. Practical implications – This research provides guidance for private and public sector organisations selling products and services to BOP consumers explaining the role of visual cues in generating better product comprehension. It also identifies the role of social relations in facilitating the adoption of new products within this segment. Social implications – By enhancing the adoption of so-called pro-poor innovations, this research can assist in bringing about positive social change and developmental benefits in this burgeoning segment of the market. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to consider innovation adoption of pro-poor innovations in BOP markets and one of the first studies to collect data on the role of visual comprehensibility for consumers in BOP markets.

If brand orientation is used as a strategy ensuring the “relative advantage” attribute of an innovation in the “bottom of the pyramid” market, it may influence the adoption of an innovation in the developing and emerging economies.

The formulation of strategic alliance by commercial, social and government organizations has potential to imultaneously achieve market related success and develop solution to social problems. Social innovation that leads to positive changes in society by providing solutions to social and environmental challenges may also require strategic collaboration by multiple organizations. Despite recent scholarly interest in social innovation, there is scant empirical evidence on the underlying drivers of network-based sustainable strategic relationships that co-create value. Moreover, further academic research on multi-stakeholder engagement to develop collaborative and strategic alliance-led social innovation can advance relevant scholarships. This study addresses these issues by analysing value co-creation through sustainable strategic alliance amongst commercial and notfor- profit organizations in Bangladesh. The research adopts qualitative method in the form of in-depth interviews from thirty-four senior management of commercial and not-for-profit organizations and industry experts in Bangladesh. Findings highlight the underlying drivers of strategic alliance that lead to value co-creation for concerned parties. The findings also suggest that strategic alliance constitutes service-ecosystem that facilitates emergence, engagement and evolution of social innovation that eventually drives value co-creation through sustained and successful social innovation. As such, the paper contributes to relevant literature and offers useful insights for practitioners and policy makers.

Guest editorial Capitalism in various forms and transformations has evolved as countries have opened up to more trade and seen the globalization process as a way of achieving higher levels of growth. In some countries, large numbers of people have been brought out of poverty. However, it has been questioned whether global markets in this process need to be regulated in order to avoid huge income inequalities, financial crashes as well as damage to the planet through climate change. This special issue does not get into the theoretical models of capitalism from pure economics or political science perspective. It instead sets out to address some of these concerns, the factors that have led to a backlash in the global system, whether things can improve, by what means as well as considering whether there will be a temporary slowdown or further movement toward a process of deglobalization.

BRAC, the largest non-government organization (NGO) of the world, empowers the rural community underserved by the capitalistic market environment. It is an important phenomenon, especially in the case of serving the very poor in developing countries.

As the digitalisation of businesses continues to change customers’ purchasing habits, brick-and-mortar retail SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) are confronted with unprecedented challenges. The proliferation of e-commerce and digital businesses is not only changing the rules of business but disrupting them by introducing new possibilities, especially with the integration of new technology. Studies that have attempted to measure technology-based service quality in retail settings are limited to online service experiences, creating a significant gap in the literature. The primary purpose of this paper is to explore how the service quality of brick-and-mortar clothing retail chains can be improved using innovative technology such as smart mirror fashion technology (SMFT), something academic research has not yet specifically addressed. This study used a qualitative approach with Soft System Methodology (SSM), based upon interviews triangulated with observations and field notes. It focused on the top five UK clothing retail chains, measured by market capitalisation. We found that the quality of service received is currently perceived as low when compared to customers’ expectations; however, use of technology enhanced service quality and influenced customer satisfaction. There was a positive relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction and the use of SMFT. The contribution of this study lies in the development of a new framework that integrates SMFT with traditional in-store transaction processes, resulting in improvements in service delivery and managerial practices of the offline clothing retail service providers. The study concludes that embracing SMFT can help provide high-quality service, creating value for customers.

Guest editorial

Purpose To enhance the understanding of the moderating influence of different bottom of the pyramid (BOP) income segments on the antecedents of pro-poor innovation acceptance. Design/methodology/approach In this study, 320 BOP consumers with a range of low-to-moderate literacy and low-income levels were used as a convenience non-probability sample for undertaking quantitative analyses. Findings Only the influence of perceived usefulness on intention is moderated by income segments, such that the effect will be stronger for low-income BOP segment. Moreover, the influences of relative advantage, compatibility and observability on intention are moderated by income segments. Practical implications This empirical work has considerable private sector and public policy implications for companies and government designing/selling products for millions of poor people in developing and emerging economies. Originality/value This study contributes originally to knowledge in the subject area as there are very few studies that clearly and systematically analyse the key antecedents influencing the adoption intention of pro-poor technological innovations in the BOP market.

Guest Editorial

Guest Editorial

It is argued in this paper that the World Heritage Site (WHS) status as a label plays an important role in branding, creating awareness among the tourists and promoting a specific place – be it natural or cultural. The study is based on qualitative research and utilised Interviews and Explanatory Case Study Method, taking Maritime Greenwich WHS as a case. It is found that the status of WHS motivates the tourists in general and heritage tourists in particular to visit the case study site. Also, the status helps in boosting the level of confidence of the tourists while selecting the site. Overall, it helps to reinforce the identity of a place. However, sustainability and conservation should not take a back seat when the very purpose of branding a site as WHS is this. It is ideal to have a balance in managing the demand and supply side of place management & marketing making sure that the heritage value and trust is kept intact.

The main objective of this paper is to explore the role environmental sustainability plays in the concept of nation branding. Hypothesising the role of environmental sustainability in nation branding as that of being a hygiene factor, the paper links existing concepts to the practical examples of countries and consumer attitudes in today's world. Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman's (1959) popular dual factor theory is contextualised illustrating the role of environmental sustainability in nation branding. There is little academic research undertaken in this area seeking to explore the interrelatedness between these two themes and thus this paper provides useful and reflective insights into how environmental sustainability can be part of the concept of nation branding.

This paper considers the Community Information Centre (CIC) of Grameenphone (name of Norwegian Telenor in Bangladesh) as a case study to investigate how brand orientation as a strategy of Grameenphone influences the adoption of an innovation like CIC in the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) market in Bangladesh. From the findings of quantitative research (factor, regression and correlation analyses), it is found that brand orientation significantly influences the ‘relative advantage’ attribute of an innovation like CIC in the BOP market. This has strategic implications for multinational corporations designing or selling products to the millions of poor people in developing and emerging economies.

This paper presents a case study which was developed as one of the deliverables of the Teaching Research and Development Grant received from the Academy of Marketing, UK. It presents the case of the BRAC Health Programme that provides essential medicines and healthcare services to the rural poor of Bangladesh through the network of its own micro-finance programme, while utilising government facilities and enhancing the distribution channel of the private sector pharmaceutical companies operating there. Because of lack of financial resources and know-how, the public sector cannot provide essential services like health and education to all the people in developing countries. BRAC's Health Programme tackles this problem to an extent with the help of its community health volunteers who take essential health services to the remote and rural corners of the country. It is a good example of cross-sectoral working in partnership with NGOs in social marketing in developing countries.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at various dimensions of entrepreneurship and the empirical models that try to explain the relationship between entrepreneurship and growth in cities for both developed (USA and Europe) and developing countries. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an in-depth and extensive review of the existing literature on entrepreneurship and economic growth in cities. In most empirical studies, the growth rate of employment or unemployment rate is used as the dependent variable to analyze the effect of entrepreneurship on development. The important independent variables other than entrepreneurship (new start-ups) are localization, urbanization, level of education, age, industry structure (specialization vs competition), monopoly or competition. The economic units considered for cities are labor market areas (LMAs), standard metropolitan areas (SMAs) and consolidated metropolitan statistical areas (CMSAs). The majority of studies have utilized discrete dependent variable models such as Tobit or Probit to calculate the probability of the effect of entrepreneurship on economic growth. Other studies have applied ordinary least squares estimation to find the cross-sectional variation of employment growth that accounts for entrepreneurial activities. Panel data are employed in a number of models to control for region-specific and country-specific fixed effects. Findings – In this paper, four important dimensions of entrepreneurship are identified. First, for entrepreneurial studies on economic growth, cities are considered to be appropriate economic units rather than states or countries. Second, there are several definitions and measurements of entrepreneurship available in the literature. Hence, empirical models and their results may vary depending on the model specification. Third, the relationship between employment growth (a proxy for economic growth) and innovative activity is dynamic in nature and thus the problem of

Multi-national corporations (MNCs) and large domestic companies have traditionally ignored a large part of the world's population with lower income levels, also known as the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). New empirical measures of the behaviour of those at the BOP and their aggregate purchasing power, however, suggest significant opportunities for the MNCs - as the BOP constitutes a $5 trillion global consumer market. In this paper, we explore the key elements of the BOP thesis and offer a critique from a number of developmental and marketing perspectives. We argue that instead of focusing on untapped low-income markets for profit-generation only, a business model that integrates local people and take into account the local socio-economic context of the target markets, is a more sustainable way to successfully penetrate the BOP markets. To illustrate this point, we explore a case study from Bangladesh, namely Village Phone Programme (VPP), an initiave undertaken by Telenor AS, a Norwegian telecommunications company, in alliance with an internationally known development organisation in the country - the Grameen Bank.

The use of various forms of ICTs (information communication technology) such as mobile telephones can foster the socio-economic progression of developing countries. Contextually appropriate design and use are needed for ICTs to deliver value to various parties within the socio-economic spheres of developing countries who have different needs and wants compared to those of the developed world. There is however scant empirical evidence of how various stakeholders symbiotically interact and create value in developing countries where large multinationals have limited access and engagement. Drawing on the theoretical lens of co-creation of value our paper examines how technology upgrading is achieved in the context of the Bangladeshi mobile telephone industry. In doing so this paper suggests technology upgrading can be achieved even without some of the key prerequisites such as financial, institutional, infrastructural facilities cited in existing literature. The findings offer useful theoretical and policy implications by providing deeper understanding of the interactions and inter-relationships of those who have involvement in the value creation for mobile telephony and contribute to the development of effective business models and technological innovations for these marketplaces.

This article investigates the factors influencing mobile payment in China's bottom‐of‐the‐pyramid (BOP) market via in‐depth interviews with mobile payment users in several geographic regions in China. This article investigates factors influencing mobile payment adoption in the BOP context. The results show that product bundling, after‐sale services, interference from other institutions, perceived corporate integrity, and monopoly and information opaqueness can influence mobile payment adoption in the BOP context. The findings will help practitioners understand and improve mobile payment adoption in the BOP context.

The process by which technological innovation is adopted and diffused within an industry persists as a key research interest in the existing literature. Furthermore, the innovation and diffusion of ICT (information and communications technology) in general and smartphones in particular are viewed as a useful resource to support and foster socio-economic wellbeing in developing countries. As such, sustainable design and development of smartphone industry in developing world and their contribution to socio-economic wellbeing has drawn significant research attention. In the current study, we explore and analyse various factors and their inter-relationships that initiate, support and disseminate technological innovation within the smartphone industry in Bangladesh and Indian province of West Bengal who share linguistic, historical and cultural ties. Drawing on the concept of co-creation of value we develop a dialectical perspective toward multi-stakeholder involvement in smartphone industry’s creation of value. Through in-depth interviews with senior government and private sector employees, industry experts, researchers, and small and medium enterprise owners, we conclude that the development of ancillary industries, contextually appropriate apps and innovation by small enterprises and inter-industry collaborations contribute to current and future innovation and sustainable development of smartphone industry.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in China has been a central debate worldwide. This paper explores how two leading International sportswear companies operating in China are communicating their CSR initiatives to the Chinese customers. This study analyses customer’s degree of interest in CSR and other related attributes as well as their impact on developing customer’s loyalty about the company. The findings suggest strong impact of the CSR dimensions (e.g. workplace, marketplace and environment support) and other related attributes (e.g. price, product quality and uniqueness) on developing customer loyalty. The study has also identified the regional difference in relation to customer’s CSR perceptions and the likelihood of being influenced by the company’s CSR initiatives. The implications of this study are relevant to both of the international and Chinese local companies for strengthening their social responsibility associations with the customers.

Purpose – To explore how visual comprehensibility of a product can affect innovation adoption among bottom of the pyramid consumers (BOP) in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach – This is an exploratory qualitative study based on interviews with 8 managerial respondents involved in the design and marketing of innovative products targeted at BOP consumers in Bangladesh, and 3 respondents who are consumers of these products. Findings – One key finding from this research, in comparison to innovation adoption research in developed contexts, is the distinct importance that BOP consumers attach to visual cues in learning about and understanding a new product. Practical implications – This research provides guidance for private and public sector organisations selling products and services to BOP consumers on the role of visual cues in generating better product comprehension. It also identifies the role of social relations in facilitating adoption of new products within this segment. Social implications – Through enhancing adoption of so called pro-poor innovations this research can assist in bringing about positive social change and developmental benefits in this burgeoning segment of the market. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to consider innovation adoption of propoor innovations in BOP markets and one of the first studies to collect data on the role of visual comprehensibility for consumers in BOP markets.

This book section is about the loyalty and competition in the changing market place in the supermarket industry. [Case study]

The paper aims to understand through primary research the effectiveness of advertising where corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages are given in an international marketing context in a developing country. The work would benefit marketers devise their international marketing strategy and would give new insights into positioning a brand strategically in the developing world. The discussion is on the practice of Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunications company in Bangladesh, a South East Asian country. Other than the commonly perceived utility of corporate reputation management and risk reduction, CSR can contribute to individual brand identity development. A company that integrates CSR in its business operations and strategies may increase sales and market share and strengthen the image and positioning of its brands. Communicating CSR activities is a way of strengthening a brand, but literature is not definitive as to the nature of CSR communication and few experimental studies have been undertaken to understand the overall impact where CSR is a major focus in advertising. Moreover, there are very few research studies undertaken in the context of developing countries involving large low income consumer groups conceptualized as Bottom of the Pyramid consumers whose understanding and perceptions toward CSR may vary from that of the developed world. The paper aims to fill in this gap.

This paper illustrates how understanding consumer preferences through market research may enhance CRM adoption among the rural customers of a developing country like Bangladesh. It presents the case of Community Information Centre (CIC) established by Grameenphone, a company owned by Telenor, the Norwegian telecommunications company and Grameen Bank, the Nobel prize winning micro credit organisation in the rural settings of Bangladesh. The paper shows that CIC is an innovative way of building and maintaining customer relationships and technological interface with the financially constrained consumers in a poor developing economy like Bangladesh.