Is bottom-of-the-pyramid orientation a new reason for product imitation in emerging markets?

While international business studies suggest that multinationals conduct extensive market research and innovation tailored to bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) customer demand, the inherent challenges of the BOP market remain overlooked. This study highlights the role of product imitation in tackling the challenges of cost reduction and awareness improvement. The imitation literature focuses on the role of institutional environments in preventing product imitation in emerging markets, while little attention is paid to how customers—especially BOP customers, the dominant arbiters of value in emerging economies—motivate firms to engage in product imitation. Drawing on institutional theory and the demand-side view, this study examines the relationship between BOP orientation—the orientation toward meeting the unique demands of BOP customers—and product imitation. Using survey data from 334 Chinese manufacturing firms, this study finds that BOP orientation has a positive relationship with product imitation. Legal incompleteness and demand uncertainty strengthen this relationship, while demand heterogeneity weakens it. This study contributes to the literature by identifying BOP orientation as an important demand-side antecedent of product imitation and highlighting how these effects are contingent on institutional and demand factors.