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Adequately addressing the grand challenge of poverty requires addressing resource scarcity. However, efforts to provide resources as a means of poverty alleviation have met with mixed success. We explore what makes resource provision effective as a means of poverty alleviation. We adopt a resourcing perspective, which focuses on the relationship between potential resources and schemas, or shared understandings, that shape how resources are used. Consistent with prior research, we find that schemas shape how resources are used in practice. However, we also find that who can access the resources is as consequential as how they are used. In exploring this issue, we identify a new category of schemas related not to use but to access, which we refer to as access schemas. We define access schemas as shared understandings regarding who can appropriately access potential resources. We find that different social groups have distinct schemas regarding access, and we identify three mechanisms—precedence, complementarity, and scaffolding—that shape the way that access schemas are enacted in resource-scarce settings. Our study contributes to the literature on grand challenges by clarifying the link between resource provision and resource use. We also contribute to the literature on resourcing by uncovering mechanisms that shape schema enactment in the presence of conflicting access schemas held by different social groups. Funding: This work was supported by the Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee [GRF Grants PolyU 548210 and PolyU 549211], and International Development Research Centre [Doctoral Research Award 107473-99906075-074]. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.1570 .

A growing number of firms have used disruptive innovation as a strategy to gain competitiveness, and the topic of how disruptive innovation occurs has attracted wide attention. Leveraging the extant literature on disruptive innovation, stakeholder theory, and contingency theory, this study explores how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects disruptive innovation under various degrees of environmental turbulence. A sample of 226 firms was used, and empirical results indicate that CSR (external and internal CSR) positively affects disruptive innovation. In addition, technological turbulence positively moderates the abovementioned relationships, while the effect between external CSR and disruptive innovation was negatively moderated by market turbulence. These findings advance the knowledge of disruptive innovation, stakeholder theory, and contingency theory, and provide practical insights to guide the implementation of disruptive innovation.

Purpose This paper aims to explore how a socio-digital platform can facilitate consumer responsibilisation in food consumption to encourage sustained responsible consumption and uncovers its possible impacts on different stakeholders in the agricultural ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach Two-year-long case study of a socio-digital platform that aims to integrate consumers with the farming process; creating value for them and the farmers in India. Findings The process of consumer responsibilisation happens through three mechanisms; construction of a moral-material identity, vicarious self-artisanship and shared responsibilisation. Through these key mechanisms, the socio-digital platform could foster consumer responsibilisation and engender positive societal impacts by promoting both responsible production and consumption. Research limitations/implications This study shows how the construction of moral–material identity could move beyond an either-or choice between moralistic and material identity and allow space for the coexistence of both. This paper highlights how a socio-digital platform can be leveraged to facilitate responsible consumer engagement in an aestheticised farming process. Practical implications This paper aims to guide policymakers to design digitally-enabled human-centred innovation in facilitating consumer engagement with farming and cultivating responsible consumers in achieving sustainable development goals. Social implications This study shows how consumer responsibilisation can actually address market failures by enhancing the value created in the system, reducing wastage and cutting costs wherever possible, which drive better incomes for the farmers. Originality/value Previous studies have discussed heterogeneous motivations for responsible food consumption. However, this research explores the processes through which an individual reconnects to food production and the mechanisms that support this process in the long run.

Speed and strength are two important but understudied dimensions of alliance portfolio (AP) expansion. AP expansion speed can expedite learning but also leads to time-compression diseconomies and escalating costs; AP expansion strength mitigates this effect but limits the benefits of faster expansion. We examined the effect of AP expansion speed on firm valuation and found that expansion speed has an inverted U-shaped effect for exploratory APs and a U-shaped effect for exploitative APs. We also found that expansion strength moderates the effect of expansion speed on firm valuation, causing both curves to flatten. These hypotheses are generally supported by a longitudinal investigation of 84 Indian technology firms from 2003 to 2014 (totaling 900 firm-year observations).

Many organizations aim to increase the representation of women in their workforce, yet such efforts are often challenged by women’s relatively higher propensity to leave a job compared to men. Overlooked so far has been the temporal relationship between the representation of women and an organization’s collective employee turnover. We suggest that a substantive and rapid increase in the representation of women positively affects women and results in positive spillover effects for men, leading to a decrease in collective turnover. In our theoretical development, we explain how higher representation of women is associated with higher job embeddedness for all employees, which results in a subsequent decrease in collective employee turnover. We use latent curve model (LCM) analysis to examine a population of 499 organizations over a 14-year time span, and find support for our hypotheses. We suggest opportunities for future research and offer implications for practicing managers.

This study examines how quality signals sent by technology ventures jointly affect investors' decisions under information asymmetry. We categorize signal contents as concerning technology development, venture officers, or early investors. Because similar information may not much reduce information asymmetry, different signals of the same content substitute for one another in enabling ventures to raise capital in their initial public offerings (IPOs). In contrast, signals of different contents collectively reduce information asymmetry, and thus complement each other. Furthermore, public investors may be more capable of assessing, and therefore give more weight to, signals based on the abilities and commitment of venture officers and early investors than to signals based on the viability and appropriability of technology development. We employ fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and find evidence for these mechanisms from data on 268 IPOs of biotechnology ventures in the United States.

Social enterprises (SEs) primarily aim to create social value, that is, to generate benefits or reduce costs for society, while maintaining financial sustainability. Owing to their unique operating conditions and organizational characteristics, SEs face more severe resource challenges than their commercial counterparts. These challenges are exacerbated for SEs operating in emerging economies with complex social contexts. Overcoming these resource constraints and social challenges is vital for SEs to achieve their mission. Using an inductive multiple case-study approach, we identify a unique bricolage solution for achieving the dual objectives of SEs. Our findings suggest that identifying locally embedded village level entrepreneurs is a bricolage activity that social entrepreneurs leverage in the resource constrained environment of emerging economies, especially for the social enterprises that are active in the villages but were founded by social entrepreneurs who are not from these villages. This article therefore contributes to both social entrepreneurship literature as well as entrepreneurial bricolage literature and has important implications for future research and practice.

This study examines the characteristics and resourcing activities of community-based sharing economy models at the base of the pyramid (BoP) through a case study of two sharing economy-based initiatives of a global development organisation. Findings suggest temporary and customised resource access, platform-mediated transactions, mission and ownership as the key characteristics of these sharing economy-based initiatives. Further, findings present key resourcing activities and value creation mechanisms of these models and highlight the roles of local and institutional actors in the resourcing and value creation processes. Findings contribute to the sharing economy literature by linking actors, resourcing activities and value creation in sharing economy models at the BoP.

Using a case study approach of a pioneering social enterprise in India, this study identifies primary characteristics of a digitally anchored sharing economy model at the base of the pyramid (BoP) and explores the role of such a model in the process of social intermediation and value creation. Research suggests that digital stack, access without ownership, temporality of access, and value co-creation are the primary characteristics of the sharing economy model. Our case study of Farmizen reveals that the sharing economy model enables social intermediation and value creation in the resource-constrained setting by reducing transaction costs, mitigating risks, increasing income level, and increasing socialisation between producers and consumers. Overall, this study contributes to the social intermediation literature by highlighting that sharing economy models can facilitate the process of social intermediation and can be leveraged to achieve sustainable livelihood in the BoP context.

This chapter examines how an ecosystem approach can be applied to develop and sustain sharing activities and to scale the social impact of sharing economy models (SEMs). Using the literature and findings from a pilot study of Moving Feast, an emerging ecosystem among food-based social organizations in Victoria, Australia, we develop a relational ecosystem approach to sharing economy in which key actors (i.e., STREAT social enterprise) steer the process through informal arrangements to generate trust and reciprocity in the system. In this approach, bottom-up process of building an ecosystem relies on actors’ sharing orientation and sharing behavior to offer localized and context-specific solutions. These sharing orientation and behaviors are sustained as they become institutionalized and embedded in the ecosystem through both organizational and system-level processes and the development of sharing institutional logic. This relational ecosystem approach also resulted in initial signs of impact on both specific stakeholder and system level that would have been difficult to achieve through scaling individual organizations. Our study highlights the role of place-based, bottom-up processes in cultivating and sustaining sharing behavior.

This book is an attempt to extend the boundary of the sharing economy literature by understanding the opportunities and challenges of implementing sharing economy models at the base of the pyramid (BOP). Compared to contexts generally studied in mainstream sharing economy models, the unique characteristics of the BOP contexts require a reconceptualization of several aspects of the existing models. To this end, this book is the first step in integrating knowledge from various theoretical perspectives and empirical contexts. The diverse theoretical perspectives that the chapters in this book have drawn upon include digital social innovation, platform cooperativism, technoficing, institutional entrepreneurship, social intermediation, social entrepreneurship, collaborative consumption, resourcing, social capital, and ecosystem perspectives. In terms of empirical contexts, this book integrates the understanding of various sharing economy models implemented across geographies such as Australia, China, India, Italy, and Malaysia. Thus, this book represents the beginning of a process of creating a rich body of knowledge about sharing economy models in the BOP context that has implications for both theory and practice.

The prevalent discourse on sharing economy presume it to be an economic system in which assets or services are shared between peers, groups, or organizations for free or for a fee. Sharing economy conceptualized as commercialzed access to idle resources has grown exponentially in both scale and scope over the past years. However, there has been relatively less attention on potential of sharing economy in addressing the needs of marginalized communities. Building on digital social innovation framework (Qureshie et al. Information Systems Journal, 31(5):1–25, 2012b), we develop a 3S framework and reformative-transformative classification that help structure and analyze sharing economy models at the base of the pyramid. The 3S framework identify three dimensions of the sharing economy that are relevant for the base of the pyramid: scope of sharing, possibility of socialization, and degree of social intermediation. Reformative-transformative classification provide lens to understand the impact of sharing economy initiatives on the base of the pyramid population.

How does corporate social responsibility affect disruptive innovation? Leveraging stakeholder theory, we expect that corporate social responsibility (CSR, including internal CSR and external CSR) f...

Knowledge sharing is central to reducing inequality and alleviating poverty. However, communities in settings of extreme poverty are often bounded by distinct perspectives and understandings that hinder knowledge sharing. Furthermore, social fault lines may create internal boundaries that impede interaction, further complicating knowledge sharing. Despite these challenges, some knowledge sharing efforts are successful. The purpose of this study is to better understand how knowledge sharing overcomes boundaries in settings of extreme inequality and poverty. Using qualitative data from rural India, we find that boundary work performed by boundary spanners overcomes external and internal boundaries by creating space for action, observation, and reflection in the recipient community. These actions, or syncretizing mechanisms, transform newly introduced knowledge, which then facilitates further boundary work, resulting in community transformation. Under certain circumstances, we see how boundary work and syncretism can lead to significant knowledge and recipient transformation. Thus, we seek to contribute to the literature by more fully exploring the transformative power of knowledge sharing within contexts of extreme poverty, and by explaining the process by which it occurs.

The value of the networks that MBA students develop is often limited by the tendency of people to favor connections with similar others, resulting in self-segregation among identity groups. To iden...