Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

Emerging Market Institutional ContextBurgess and Steenkamp (2006) recently provided a framework for understanding the typicalcharacteristics of EMs. They identify three main pillars of societies that underlie institutions in allsocieties, namely the socioeconomic, cultural and regulative systems. The socioeconomic system includessocial, political, economic and demographic factors while the cultural system deals with people‘s beliefs,attitudes, habits, norms and behaviors.The regulative system deals with formal rules and theconsequences of compliance or non-compliance; and the presence and effectiveness of regulatory andrelated institutions.The socioeconomic system in EMs is characterized by dynamics, demographics, and diversity. Thedynamics aspect refers to rapid rates of economic and social change. The demographic profile of EMs isgenerally youthful and diverse. This diversity produces one of the most distinguishing characteristics ofEMs: a bifurcated market in which one segment enjoys living standards comparable to HICs while otherslive in conditions of extreme poverty (Batra, 1999). Burgess and Steenkamp refer to the bifurcatedsegments as the ―urban elite‖ (generally about 5-20 % of the population) and ―mass-market‖, respectively.The urban elite exhibit many of the characteristics associated with the urban elite in EMs elsewhere. Forexample, they have relatively high levels of formal education and usually are employed in the modernformal economy. Their access to global media and awareness of global brands and advertising campaignsis high, with preferences for global brands common in many product categories (Alden, Steenkamp &Batra, 2006)On the other hand, many mass market consumers have living standards that are at or near the levelof subsistence (Ruth & Hsuing, 2007).Subsistence entails conditions of economic constraint andinterdependence that affects every element of daily life. The conditions of subsistence living standards,low formal education, illiteracy, innumeracy, cramped living conditions, often inadequate access to basicpotable water, electricity and formal healthcare shape their media and product consumption patterns(Burgess, 2002). These living conditions in EMs affect cultural systems, which may be observed in thepeople‘s cultural emphases (Schwartz et al., 2006; Schwartz et al., 2001).