SEARCH tel. +44 (0)203 031 2900 CHALLENGE US MY FAVOURITES ACCOUNT LOG OUT HOME ABOUT IDEAS LIBRARY IDEAS BY INSTITUTIONS Home Ideas Library Collectivism and Consumers at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ in South Africa 10.13007/290 Ideas for Leaders #290 Collectivism and Consumers at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ in South Africa Key Concept Despite their poverty and limited purchasing power, people at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ in South Africa increasingly attract the attention of marketers. At more than one third of South Africa’s population, they represent a significant, or potentially significant, market for companies. But they will not be ‘reached’ by conventional approaches — or by applying the individualistic perspective of the developed world. At the bottom of the pyramid in South Africa, communities are different — and collectivism still counts. Idea Summary "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" – A person is a person through other persons. (from the humanist African philosophy Ubuntu) The ‘bottom of the pyramid’ (BoP), the world’s poorest socio-economic group, as defined by business thinker C. K. Prahalad and his colleagues, has received much attention from marketing academics and practitioners in the past 10 years, both globally and in South Africa. So far, however, the themes have been quite limited, the focus quite narrow. Most studies in the marketing literature have taken a highly individualised approach, using, for example, the individual consumer not the household or the family as the unit of analysis, and theories such as ‘self-determination’ as part of the frame of reference. In other words, they’ve tended to see BoP consumers as individuals acting in a social vacuum rather than as people bound by ties to wider groups. New research adopts a different perspective. It takes as its starting point the decades-long distinction between individualism and collectivism that separates the developed and the developing world. (Individualism is mainly associated with richer societies and countries such as America, Australia and the UK; collectivism is mainly associated with poorer societies and countries.) Building on two earlier studies, researchers from the University of Pretoria and the University of New Mexico hypothesise that collectivism is a key determinant of BoP classification in South Africa, and they test their theories through analysis of archival data from the All Media and Product Survey (AMPS), carried out by the South African Audience Research Foundation (SAARF). The results show that collectivism and four proxy indicators of collectivism — income, lifestyle, community and race — can accurately predict whether or not a South African is part of the BoP. All hypotheses, in other words, are Authors Chipp, Kerry Corder, Clive Kapelianis, Dimitri Institutions University of Pretoria Gordon Institute of Business Science University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management Source Management Dynamics : Journal of the Southern African Institute for Management Scientists Idea conceived March 2013 Idea posted January 2014 DOI number Subject Globalization Emerging Markets Global Operations