Untapped markets are often deemed institutional voids, terra incognita ripe with economic possibility. The conversion of institutional voids into viable markets has become the ambition of many corporations today, which view marginal and under-served areas such as urban slums as opportunities to achieve the dual aims of market growth and poverty reduction, particularly through ‘bottom of the pyramid’ (BoP) programmes. This article examines how firms manage institutional voids and the consequences of these approaches for workers through a case study of a BoP ‘route to market’ programme designed by a global food manufacturer in Kibera, Africa's largest slum, located in Nairobi. Instead of engaging with Kibera by upgrading informal markets or generating formal employment, the corporation focused on harnessing existing informal systems through composite arrangements of NGOs, social networks and informal enterprises, a strategy the authors term ‘remote (dis)engagement’. The article describes the logics and outcome of this strategy of formal engagement with informal markets, concluding that the BoP business model depends on ‘gig practices’ of flexibility, irregular work and insecurity to realize the much-heralded ‘fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’.

中文翻译：

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远程（脱离）参与：将企业风险转移到“金字塔底部”

未开发的市场通常被认为是制度空白，经济可能性尚未成熟。将制度空白转化为可行的市场已成为当今许多公司的抱负，它们将城市贫民窟等边缘和服务不足的地区视为实现市场增长和减贫双重目标的机会，特别是通过“金字塔底” ' (BoP) 计划。本文通过对位于内罗毕的非洲最大贫民窟 Kibera 的一家全球食品制造商设计的 BoP“通往市场之路”计划的案例研究，研究了公司如何管理制度空白以及这些方法对工人的影响。与其通过升级非正规市场或创造正规就业机会与 Kibera 打交道，该公司专注于通过非政府组织、社会网络和非正规企业的复合安排来利用现有的非正规系统，作者将这种策略称为“远程（脱离）参与”。文章描述了这种正式与非正式市场接触的策略的逻辑和结果，得出结论认为 BoP 商业模式依赖于灵活性、不定期工作和不安全感的“零工实践”来实现广受赞誉的“金字塔底部的财富” '。