Ethical Concerns at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Where CSR meets BOP

Abstract: There is growing interest in C.K. Prahalad’s concept of attacking world poverty by encouraging multinational firms to do business with the “bottom of the pyramid, ” the billions of people in the world who must survive on $2 a day or less. This paper enumerates and describes the ethical problems associated with this concept and reviews two classic case studies which shed light on our analysis. Prahalad specifically disassociates his concept from corporate social responsibility. However, this paper argues that properly understood, the core elements of corporate social responsibility must be incorporated into bottom-of-the-pyramid strategies if they are to have any chance of succes