Dr. Nancy E. Landrum is Associate Professor of strategic management at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  Her teaching, research, and consulting expertise are in strategic management, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability.  Dr. Landrum received her Ph.D. from New Mexico State University.  She has authored or co-authored several journal publications and has made numerous professional presentations.

By Dr. Nancy E. Landrum

I would like to thank NextBillion and Robert Katz for the invitation to contribute this guest post.  Let me begin by offering some comments on Robert’s review of Advancing the ‘Base of the Pyramid’ Debate.  I am glad the literature review and analysis were of interest and I hope they add to the continuing development of BOP strategies.  I do acknowledge that my paper did not cite the WRI/IFC report since my paper was written before the report was released.  Typically there is a lengthy delay in publishing academic research, which frequently results in the latest information being unavailable at the time of publication although online academic publications now allow for quicker and wider dissemination of timely material.

I wrote the BOP debate article because, within the academic community, Dr. Prahalad’s book is the single most cited source in reference to the BOP.  The popularity of Prahalad’s book is acknowledged by best seller lists and frequent citations in the media.  I became concerned that corporations took notice only of the profit maximization message and gave less priority to their environmental and human impact.  Those with a keen interest in the BOP are aware of additional research, perspectives, and case studies extending beyond Prahalad’s book.  But casual readers may only become familiar with this single publication on the BOP, perhaps because it was a class assignment or perhaps because it was on the best seller lists of business books, and I wanted to reach this audience and offer another perspective.  I agree with Robert Katz that Prahalad's research has advanced since his book came out and I have high regard for Prahalad’s work and the impact he has made with this single publication.  In fact, I am enormously grateful to the work of Prahalad and Hart for envisioning such a humanitarian approach to globalization.    

I view BOP strategies as an evolving paradigm, as demonstrated by the continued development of Prahalad and Hart’s original work and the numerous researchers and companies engaging in this conversation.  As BOP work evolves, I see that current works create a more balanced approach toward financial, social, and environmental concerns.

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