Document Type
Research Article - Refereed
Abstract
Subsistence Marketplaces publishes studies that study consumers, entrepreneurs, and marketplaces from a broad range of low income contexts in their own right, transcending the boundaries between sectors and disciplines to derive practically meaningful implications. This paper contributes to accomplishing the mission of the new journal by contextualizing market learning theory to subsistence marketplaces. More specifically, the study links two modes of market learning (exploration and exploitation) with producers’ livelihood performance. It hypothesizes that within subsistence marketplaces, producers benefit the most from exploration but to seize a market opportunity beyond the subsistence context, BoP producers should strengthen their exploitative learning processes. We use producer survey data from 389 producers from shrimp fishing and shea butter production, two sectors selected by the Beninese Government for their development potential. The sectors vary systematically in their level of high-income market integration. We employ item-response theory to develop measures that allow to formally compare the two sectors while paying respect to their contextual differences. The results show partial support and imply that development policies and corporate procurement should support BoP producers in strengthening the appropriate learning processes.
Recommended Citation
Ingenbleek, Paul; Adekambi, Souleimane A.; and van Trijp, Hans C.M.
(2023)
"Learning from subsistence marketplaces and beyond: A cross-sectoral comparison in Benin,"
Subsistence Marketplaces: Vol. 1:
No.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/subsistencemarketplaces/vol1/iss1/7
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