Paper short abstract:

Colombian inclusive businesses around internal conflict face implementation barriers, which are analysed using resource-dependence and institutional theories, with the aim of categorizing strategies and understanding motives that have guided their selection by organisations to manage the barriers.

Paper long abstract:

Engaging with businesses to alleviate poverty has gained prominence in development agendas; this ranges from the Millennium Development Goals to the current Sustainable Development Goals promoting 'inclusive and sustainable economic growth and inclusive and sustainable industrialization'. In these scenarios, inclusive business models - those involving the bottom of the pyramid under a value chain approach - appear to be an instrument to achieve those goals. The Colombian experience around internal armed conflict provides cases of inclusive businesses involving actors who face violence, such as: displaced populations, demobilized ex-combatants, and communities of peace, etc. Based on the author's doctoral fieldwork, this paper aims to explore preliminary results about the main barriers faced by implementers when involving actors of conflict in inclusive business; it also aims to identify the strategies to overcome barriers related to violence using the foundations of resource-dependence theory. In addition, the paper performs an analysis under institutional theory to examine the motives that guide the selection of strategies adopted by organisations to manage these barriers. In exploring the implementation barriers, it is expected that insight may be obtained about the influence that the conditions of vulnerability - produced by the violence context - seem to have on the implementation of inclusive businesses. In understanding the emergence of strategies that go beyond managerial practices, tackling social and institutional issues related to conflict, it is suggested that the process of overcoming barriers will contribute to peace building processes by tackling the causes of conflict and developing conditions for its alleviation.