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Purpose This paper aims to explore and learn about managerial practices of informal services at the base of the pyramid (BoP). Design/methodology/approach The study reports findings of an empirical research conducted in 16 cities in Mexico during a two-year period. Managerial practices in 327 micro-businesses were identified and analyzed after conducting direct observation and personal interviews with owners, employees and customers of these BoP informal service businesses. Findings The paper shows that managerial practices of BoP informal service micro-businesses are developed through a dynamic, integrated network of owner, employees and customers who integrate scarce resources building win-win-win relationships to satisfy their basic daily needs. Practical implications The creation and management of a BoP informal service business is mainly a matter of satisfying basic needs, aiming to positively transform a community by improving well-being. This paper provides insights to understand those relationships and interactions among the main actors involved, highlighting the need to identify and integrate the BoP service management cycle to better address their needs. Originality/value This paper proposes a conceptual service management framework for informal micro-businesses at the BoP integrating the owners, employees and customers’ perspectives. Three corresponding cycles are identified and discussed, which are useful to elicit relevant characteristics of key roles, activities, interactions and relationships taking place in informal services.

The Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) concept plays a prominent role among the market-based perspectives for poverty alleviation. Previous literature reviews discuss the evolution of the BoP concept as a research domain, however several major research streams that approach the phenomenon from distinct angles have been overlooked. To address these shortcomings, we continue these reviews and formulate recommendations for theoretical and empirical advancement by considering emerging research domains. We use the problematization method to identify in-house and field assumptions shared across research domains and test them through critical empirical and theoretical interrogation. Therefore, we extend the original BoP concept by considering emerging research domains that have been neglected in earlier studies, including Corporate Social Responsibility, Inclusive Business, Microfinance, Non-Profit Expansion, Social Entrepreneurship, and Subsistence Marketplaces. We also revise the BoP business model idea and develop a framework that highlights key dimensions for management research in BoP markets. These dimensions include business ecosystems, financial viability, innovativeness, resource scarcity, role of the poor and scalability. For each dimension, we develop future research questions.

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