A Historical Review of Local Intermediaries in Impoverished Contexts

Abstract

The role of local intermediaries in impoverished contexts has been a focus of attention within the marketing and development literature since shortly after WWII. A systematic review of this work reveals that while much of this literature identifies market intermediaries as exploitative and unspecialized entities, other work views them more positively. These conflicting accounts, rarely supported empirically, have resulted in diverging policy recommendations. Many scholars call for the wholesale removal of such intermediaries, while a lesser number argue that they can and should be supported. The dominant view as regards local intermediaries reflects three prevailing biases in the marketing and development literature: an emphasis on transformation; a rejection of the local; and a favouring of consumers and producers over intermediaries. This paper describes these biases and proposes shaping constructs, potential future research questions, theoretical lenses, and methods of analysis that should ideally guide future scholarship on the role of local intermediaries within impoverished contexts.

Envisioning a community‐centric approach to impact assessments in subsistence marketplaces

“…A self‐critical stance of this nature runs counter to the notion of methodological gold‐standards that hold the promise of infallible knowledge. For example, adopting a self‐reflexive stance, Beninger and Shapiro (2019) provide a cogent analysis of how the very rhetoric of “transformative change” can lead to the elimination of local intermediaries in subsistence contexts who provide many services of incremental value in the context. Sarkar and Kundu (2016) echo the sentiment by elaborating on the numerous ways in which socially embedded retailers serve the needs of subsistence consumers.…”

Informal Cross Border Trade as a Substratum Marketing System: A Review and Conceptual Framework

“…Like several recent studies (e.g. Beninger and Shapiro 2019; McArthur, Weaven, and Dant 2016; Newman et al 2014) that use literature reviews to theorize, we set aside the bibliometric profile and focus on assessing extant knowledge.…”

7 Fairtrade Towns: A Community Based Social Marketing Perspective in Promoting Ethical Consumption

“…Instead, intermediaries have also been considered as important, particularly in impoverished contexts. As a result, Beninger and Shapiro (2018) conclude that the literature is largely conflicted about whether intermediaries should be removed or whether they should be supported, and that further research is needed to determine the role of intermediaries in impoverished contexts. This paper does not provide empirical research to determine whether or not intermediaries are needed in impoverished contexts.…”

“…In a noteworthy paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Macromarketing, Beninger and Shapiro (2018) point out that despite the significance of intermediaries in marketing systems, there has been relatively little empirical research done about the role of local intermediaries in impoverished contexts. In a systematic historical literature review spanning about seven decades from the second world war onwards, Beninger and Shapiro find that although the dominant view of intermediaries is that of being exploitative and unskilled, this is not the sole perspective.…”