Competition vs. Cooperation: Motivating Groups in Base-of-the-Pyramid Markets (original) (raw)

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014

Abstract

Base-of-the-Pyramid (BOP) markets present significant governance challenges when undertaking large-scale investments. In the absence of strong legal institutions, organizations must design creative solutions for ensuring that local partners adhere to their agreements. Drawing upon social interdependence theory, we propose that the use of alternative goal structures will serve to motivate local partners to fulfill their commitments. Using data from a multi-method field experiment involving 44 construction projects within rural Sri Lanka, our results suggest that competitive goal structures are more effective than cooperative goal structures within BOP markets for reasons of resource scarcity. Furthermore, our findings suggest that higher levels of inter-group familiarity significantly decreases motivation with the use of cooperative goal structures, but do not harm motivation within competitive goal structures. Our study contributes to theory by exploring how the environmental and social context can signif...

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