In this research we examine the role of the nationalist ideology of swadeshi in a contemporary anticonsumption movement and show that its deployment is linked to the experiences of colonialism, modernity, and globalization in India. Specifically, we offer a postcolonial understanding of reflexivity and nationalism in an anticonsumption movement opposing Coca-Cola in India. This helps us offer an interpretation of this consumer movement involving spatial politics, temporal heterogeneity, appropriation of existing ideology, the use of consumption in ideology, and attempts to bring together a disparate set of actors in the movement. (c) 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
It is generally assumed that improved outcomes accompany the use of trust as a governance mechanism in an interfirm relationship. Briefly, trust is a social lubricant that reduces the friction costs of existing trade and/or serves to increase the scope of trade. In contrast to this universalistic view, we posit that the performance of trust-based governance is contingent on the ability of trading partners to "read" each other and learn about counterpart behavior. These information-processing abilities allow firms to assess partner trustworthiness better, which reduces the risk of misplaced trust. The increased efficacy of communication and leaming from one another also enables them to better capitalize from the adaptation and revision possibilities uncovered through trust-based governance during the taskexecution phase. Given the central role of these cognitive requirements, we assess these contingent effects with data from a knowledge-intensive task setting. Using a sample of 129 firms that have engaged outside contractors on client-sponsored R&D projects, we find strong support for our thesis. Specifically, we find that trust-based governance has a larger positive impact on task performance when the client is more skilled at understanding the outsourced tasks at hand, the task itself requires skills that are relatively more readily taught (less tacit), and the task itself is organized in parallel with work being done at the contractor as well as the client. As a corollary, we also find that firms adopt trust-based governance to a greater extent as these information-processing abilities increase, as well as with the colocation of the contractor and client. Suggestions for engineering trust-based governance are offered.
Consumer research holds potential for expanding society's understanding of how people experience poverty and mechanisms for poverty alleviation. Capitalizing on this potential, however, will require more exploration of how consumption experiences shape individual and collective well-being among the poor. This article proposes a framework for transformative consumer research focused on felt deprivation and power within the lived experience of poverty. The framework points to consumer choice, product/service experiences, consumer culture, marketplace forces, and consumption capabilities as research streams with potential to help alleviate poverty. Future research in these areas will expand pathways for transforming the lives of the poor by alleviating stress, engaging marketplace institutions, fulfilling life aspirations, leveraging trust and social capital, and facilitating creativity and adaptation.
This article adopts the concept of neoliberal governmentality to critically analyze public policy failures in a bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) marketing initiative. This research shows that e-ChoupalBefore ITC introduced us to e-Choupal, we were restricted to selling our produce in the local mandi [small market]. We had to go through middlemen and prices were low. ITC trained me to manage the Internet kiosk and I became the e-Choupal sanchalak [coordinator] in my village. Today we are a community of e-farmers with access to daily prices of a variety of crops in India and abroad-this helps us to get the best price. We can also find out about many other important things-weather forecasts, the latest farming techniques, crop insurance, etc. eChoupal has not only changed the quality of our lives, but our entire outlook.-Abhishek Jain, a farmer E radication of poverty, social justice, and economic development are important areas of public policy scholarship in marketing (Bertrand, Mullainathan, and Shafir 2006;Bloom 2009; Hill and Adrangi 1999;Viswanathan et al. 2009). The bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) theorization in management and marketing theory engages this concern through its emphasis on poverty alleviation (Pitta, Guesalaga, and Marshall 2008; Prahalad 2005; Rashid and Rahman 2009). Advocates of BOP argue that appropriate marketing interventions can help businesses make profits and potentially transform the BOP markets through poverty alleviation (e.g., Prahalad 2005; Prahalad and Hammond 2002). Here, the BOP discourse alludes to two distinct goals, profit seeking and poverty alleviation, which can potentially be in conflict (Karnani 2007). The opening quotation from an e-farmer created by the Indian agribusiness firm ITC through an information technology initiative is situated in a similar discourse. ITC claims that it has brought about a socioeconomic transformation in agricultural markets in India by using innovative marketing technology and increasing supply chain efficiency. Ironically, the firm makes this claim when nearly 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the past 12 years because of economic hardships (Sainath 2010). In this research, we apply Foucault's notion of neoliberal governmentality (Dean 1999; Foucault 2007 Foucault , 2008Rose 1999) to the BOP marketing and public policy domain to explain this conflict and to show the limitations of a profit-seeking initiative to alleviate poverty.We conducted a case study of e-Choupal, a BOP information technology initiative in agricultural markets in rural India created by ITC, a large private corporation. E-Choupals, or electronically enabled village gathering places, are information centers created in rural areas by providing computers connected to the Internet. E-Choupals function as ecommerce hubs as well as places for social gathering and information dissemination (Prahalad 2005). We conducted the case study in two villages in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) to understand the functioning of e-Choupals in the region. On the basis of our study...
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