Building the BoP Producer Ecosystem: The Evolving Engagement of Fabindia with Indian Handloom Artisa...

<jats:p>Recent research on the base of the pyramid (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content>) has called on firms to initiate market‐driven interventions directed at the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> population with the objective of identifying and pursuing mutually profitable means of attaining meaningful poverty alleviation outcomes. In response, firms as well as scholars have engaged at length with the creation of new products and services for the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> consumer but paid far less attention to the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> producer—a member of the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> population who creates value by producing goods and services for sale in nonlocal markets. Additionally, extant studies have largely focused on snapshot views of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> interventions by firms, thereby limiting our understanding of the emergence of meaningful poverty‐alleviating outcomes over time from these interventions. This paper seeks to redirect attention toward the dynamic of the long‐term engagement between the firm and the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> producer. Using rich qualitative data from <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">F</jats:styled-content>abindia—an <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">I</jats:styled-content>ndian handloom retailer—this paper examines how the engagement between <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">F</jats:styled-content>abindia and communities of handloom artisans in <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">I</jats:styled-content>ndia has persisted over a period of five decades. We found that, even as it encountered changes in the external environment and pursued newer organizational goals, <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">F</jats:styled-content>abindia repeatedly renewed its engagement with handloom artisans and facilitated progression in poverty‐alleviation outcomes. Building on the insights from the case study, this paper presents a process model that highlights the role of innovative management practices in sustaining engagements between firms and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> producers over time. Additionally, this paper proposes the concept of the “bridging enterprise”—a business enterprise that originates at the intersection of specific <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">BoP</jats:styled-content> communities and the corresponding nonlocal markets—as an interpreter and innovator reconciling the interests of stakeholders across the pyramid.</jats:p>