ABSTRACT
This chapter distinguishes the concept of practice from that of capability. It draws on the notion of organisational practice as it emerged from the work of Bourdieu and Giddens. The chapter shows that perspective on creative and innovative coping practices generates important insights for base of the pyramid (BoP) practitioners. It focuses on following research question: what different organisational practices do multinational corporations (MNCs) use to build collaborative BoP capabilities? MNCs must be willing to collaborate with non-traditional partners in order to reach the BoP market. Differences can be found in the way the MNCs actually conducted their BoP market exploration. There is a large body on collaborative networks that could be integrated with BoP notions of working with non-traditional partners, building local capacity and building from the bottom up. A comparative analysis of existing research reports, in combination with secondary data, is very important for the development of theory in the very ideographic and narrative field of BoP strategy.
