In the decade between the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, the private sector’s influence in developing and emerging countries’ economies expanded considerably. Foreign direct investment grew rapidly and now easily eclipses official development assistance.1 The governance and regulatory domains have shifted in many developing countries; such shifts have redefined the role of states, development agencies and nongovernmental organizations and have established a greater role for business in sustainable development.2 Today, the United Nations, together with many governments and NGOs, explicitly promotes the mobilization of private-sector efficiency and creativity to help address the world’s many pressing social and ecological problems. The 2004 report of the U.N. Commission on the Private Sector and Development,Unleashing Entrepreneurship, made a number of specific recommendations for private sector activity to “make business work for the poor.”3

Although there remains some mistrust of increased private sector involvement in development, as seen in commentary from some antiglobalization activists,4 polling data from citizens worldwide indicate a more positive view. Survey data suggest that the overwhelming majority of people around the world want business to do more than just make a profit and obey the law.5 In addition, the World Bank’sVoices of the Poor survey reveals that low-income people have clear hopes that commercial enterprises will provide livelihoods for them and their families.6

Concurrently, management literature has begun to describe more commercially grounded models for global economic development. Strategic management theorists C.K. Prahalad and Stuart Hart have advocated a “bottom of the pyramid” approach, in which multinational corporations and their partners in developing countries sell goods and services to the world’s poor.7 Prahalad’s and Hart’s analyses have led to the suggestion that multinationals have a special role to play in reducing poverty because they can generally mobilize greater resources, such as distribution and communications infrastructures. In addition, these management theorists argue, multinationals are better positioned to transfer learning between international markets, build partnerships and commercial infrastructure and transfer products and services between developed and developing countries.8

The BOP model acknowledges the importance of what Prahalad refers to as “market-oriented ecosystems,” business systems that focus on the “symbiotic nature of the relationships between various private sector and social institutional players.”9 These