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NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Contributor.

Madhu Viswanathan
University of Illinois

Madhu Viswanathan is the Diane and Steven Miller Professor in Business at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he has been on the faculty since 1990. He earned a B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering (Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, 1985), and a PhD in Marketing (University of Minnesota, 1990). His research programs are in two areas; measurement and research methodology, and literacy, poverty, and subsistence marketplace behaviors. He has authored books in both areas:Measurement Error and Research Design(Sage, 2005), andEnabling Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy in Subsistence Marketplaces(Springer, 2008, in alliance with UNESCO). His research on subsistence marketplaces takes a micro-level approach to gain bottom-up understanding of life circumstances and buyer, seller, and marketplace behaviors. This approach should be distinguished from macro-level economic approaches, and mid-level business strategy approaches such as base of the pyramid (BOP) research This perspective aims to enable subsistence marketplaces to move toward being ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable marketplaces. He directs the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative (www.business.illinois.edu/subsistence) and has created unique synergies between research, teaching, and social initiatives

He founded and directs the Marketplace Literacy Project, a non-profit organization.

Articles by Madhu Viswanathan

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