한국기업의 개도국 저소득층(BoP) 시장 진출을 위한 전략적 제휴·협력에 관한 사례연구

How to Make Strategic Alliances to Enter BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid) Markets in Developing Countries

Recently, Bottom the Pyramid or BoP markets in the developing nations have been attracting attentions from both management scholars and practitioners around the world. The BoP markets have huge potentials for companies to make justifiable and fair profits there by making strategic alliances. In literature, many forms of strategic alliances were dealt with extensively ranging from contract-based alliances, equity alliances, to joint ventures. Theories underlying the strategic alliances include transaction cost theory, resource dependence theory, organization learning theory, real options theory, and social network theory, to name a few. However, with a few exceptions such as the cross-sector alliance literature, existing studies cover only alliances that are made primarily between for-profit firms in ordinary markets (not BoP markets), consciously or unconsciously excluding the possibility that for-profit firms can make strategic alliances with not-for-profit organizations in the BoP markets in developing nations. In this sense, this study suggests a success case of the strategic alliances that occurred in the BoP markets in developing nations. The case study is about the Sumitomo Chemical’s BoP business activity in Tanzania. Out of this case study, a set of meaningful factors related to effective strategic alliances in the BoP markets in developing nations were derived. Future study directions were also proposed.