Impact through being bottom-up in multi-fold realms: lessons from journeying to subsistence marketplaces and marketplace literacy

Purpose This paper presents a unique approach to impact through being bottom-up in multi-fold realms. The insights were developed through extensive research into subsistence marketplaces, social enterprise developed in parallel through marketplace literacy education for communities, as well as curricular innovations for students. This paper aims to bring out distinctly different lessons about impact that are closely tied to our unique bottom-up orientation and experience. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on a multi-decade journey into subsistence marketplaces and marketplace literacy to derive insights for creating impact through research. The method is a case study of the journey into the stream of work on subsistence marketplaces and the social enterprise of marketplace literacy. The insights were developed through extensive research into subsistence marketplaces, social enterprise developed in parallel through marketplace literacy education for communities, and curricular innovations for students. This paper presents a detailed discussion of our social enterprise in terms of impact and its interface with research and education. Findings This paper develops a unique framework for impact through being bottom-up in multi-fold realms which encompasses the what of the substantive and theoretical, the how of the methodological and practical and the why, both philosophically and ethically. Noteworthy here is how the bottom-up approach resonates and is deeply intertwined with the notion of evolving understanding about impact as a discovery process. This paper emphasizes distinctly different lessons about impact closely tied to the unique bottom-up orientation and experience. Research limitations/implications The primary limitation of this research is perhaps also its strength, that it is based on the evolution of a research and practice stream that the authors are closely engaged with. However, by explicating the “bottom-up” approach, this paper provides a framework for interweaving research with theoretical implications and practical impact. This framework can be transferred to other settings. Practical implications This paper builds on the experience of a stream of research and an associated social enterprise impacting more than 100,000 individuals across seven countries. In doing so, this paper provides practical recommendations on implementing a bottom-up approach to achieve impact. This paper also provides recommendations on how the solutions to these problems can be implemented at scale by creating social enterprises. Furthermore, through the educational innovations, this paper presents practical implications for marketing and management, such as in product design and business model development. Social implications This paper draws from the examples of the subsistence marketplaces stream of research and the marketplace literacy program, both of which are focused on low-literate, low-income consumers. The focus of this paper is on how the lived realities of such consumers can generate socially impactful research questions as well as practical solutions that enhance their well-being. Having ourselves enacted the social enterprise of marketplace literacy, this paper offers in-depth implications for impact. Originality/value The bottom-up framework to create impact through research that encompasses the what (substantive, theoretical), how (methodological, practical) and why (philosophical ethical), as well as their interrelationships, is unique in a number of ways. This paper reports on emergent insights about impact that evolved from being bottom-up in the most challenging of circumstances. The context of subsistence marketplaces from which the understanding of impact emerged represents a grand challenge reflected in several sustainable development goals. This paper speaks to how the very nature of impact needs to be understood at a deep level through a bottom-up orientation.