Scaling inclusive business impacts at the Base of the Pyramid

Scaling inclusive business impacts at the Base of the Pyramid: A framework inspired by business model ecosystems research

Derks, M.
Oukes, T.
Romijn, H.

2022

Scaling the social impact of inclusive business models that provide solutions to basic needs of Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) communities through firm-centric approaches has proven challenging. Researchers have proposed that scaling strategies at the BoP should go beyond firm-centric approaches by inclusive businesses and involve coordinated synergistic action of their entire ecosystem to overcome systemic challenges and create value for all ecosystem actors. However, current research on this topic remains abstract and difficult to implement. This paper presents an empirically validated scaling framework designed to overcome this weakness and documents its design process. The framework takes account of the fact that inclusive businesses must work out scaling stra tegies together with key ecosystem actors, and that implementing a scaling strategy will almost always require mutual adaptation of business models. The framework design process entailed an extensive literature review and practitioner interviews as a first step, followed by testing, evaluation and iterative improvement through a series of validation workshops with actors of four inclusive business initiatives in Africa and Asia. The results indicate that the framework helps workshop participants to expand their mental frame, encouraging them to adopt a broader ecosystems perspective on scaling. This leads to identification and exploration of valuable business model adaptations for scaling that can be achieved through collaboration and assessment of the practical feasibility of different scaling strategies.

Base of the pyramid
Collaborative business modelling
Ecosystem impact
Scaling strategy
Systems engineering
Base of the pyramids
Bottom of the pyramids
Business impact
Collaborative business modeling
Design-process
Ecosystem impact
Model ecosystems
Scaling strategy
Scalings
Ecosystems

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b2049569-f7ba-47fa-a335-5f9ce85c1ee5

972828

Elsevier Ltd

0959-6526

Journal of Cleaner Production, 366 (366)

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