The Marketplace Literacy Project Team

 

Madhu Viswanathan is Associate Professor of Marketing, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he has been on the faculty since receiving a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota in 1990.  He focuses on two programs of research; measurement and research methodology, and literacy, poverty, and marketplace behaviors. 

 

His research program on measurement and research methodology stems from a belief that the existing literature on measurement is largely statistical and needs to be demystified.  Hence, the focus of this research program is in understanding the nature of measurement error and following this line of reasoning through to implications for measure and method development.  His work in this area includes a book entitled Measurement Error and Research Design (Sage, 2005; http://www.sagepub.com/book.aspx?pid=10505).  This book, targeted to audiences in the social science, uses an in-depth conceptual examination of measurement error to develop insights for designing and using measures and methods. 

 

His research on literacy, poverty, and marketplace behaviors examines low-literate consumer behavior in the US and low-literate buyer and seller behavior in subsistence marketplaces, i.e., in contexts across resource and literacy barriers where economic and cognitive constraints can be severe.  This work has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.  Publications stemming from this research include a book, Enabling Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy in Subsistence Marketplaces: Research-Based Education Across Literacy and Resource Barriers (Springer, 2007). 

 

His research has been published in journals in several disciplines; Computer, Speech, and Language, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Marketing Letters, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Psychology and Marketing.  He has served in several positions in academic organizations as Conference Chair Membership Chair (1999-2000) and Secretary-Treasurer in the Society for Consumer Psychology; as the Chair of the Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group, as Consumer Behavior Track Chair (1997), and as Conference Chair in the American Marketing Association.  He is currently serving on the editorial boards of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Psychology and Marketing and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Consumer Research. 

 

He teaches courses on research methods at all levels; empirical research methods for doctoral students and marketing research for undergraduate and MBA students.  He is currently part of a cross-functional team teaching a yearlong course on Product and Market Development for Subsistence Marketplaces (http://www.business.uiuc.edu/~madhuv/submktcoursemainpage.html).

 

His research on literacy, poverty, and marketplace behaviors is applied through the Marketplace Literacy Project (www.marketplaceliteracy.org), a not-for-profit organization that he founded and directs.  This organization has developed and conducts entrepreneurial and consumer literacy training programs for low-literate, low-income adults in India with plans to expand to other developing contexts as well as an e-educational platform.  This organization is also currently developing educational materials for nutrition education targeted to low-literate consumers in the US with similar plans for adult education.

 

 

                       

 

Our Team in India - S. Gajendiran & R. Venkatesan

 

 

 

 

S. Gajendiran holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Bharathidasan University, a post graduate diploma in co-operative management from Annamalai University, a Masters degree in Public Administration from Madras University, and Bachelor of Law degree from Dr.Ambethkar Law University.

 

He was the secretary of the Youth Association in the village of Neivasal, Tanjore from 1982-86. He was the Vice President of TJR.56 Milk Producers’ Cooperative Society in Tanjore from 1986 to 1989. He served as Supervisor, Adult Education Department, Tamil University, Tanjore and coordinated Adult education centers in villages from 1987 to 1988.

 

He was a social worker at the Guild of Service SSBH/Plan International project for the urban slums of Chennai to carryout its child family community development works from 1988 to 1992.  He was the Training and Evaluation Coordinator in the same endeavor from 1992 to 1998.  He coordinated vocational skill training program at the Seva Samajam Vocational Training Center, in the process of enrollment, retention, completion and placement of adolescents and women and facilitated to those, who were interested to become an Entrepreneur through linkages with financial institutions, Govt. departments and other agencies.  He was the Assistant Project Officer from 1998 to 2003 and in charge of roll out of “Corporate Planning Monitoring and Evaluation” in the Chennai field office. He conducted and coordinated summative and formative evaluation on projects and programs. He trained the representatives of 200 Self Help Groups on principles, practices, formation and strengthening.  He participated as resource person/trainer for community participation in World Bank aided water and sanitation project by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board and Functional Literacy Program staff of Chennai City Corporation.

 

R. Venkatesan completed his higher secondary education in economics and commerce.  He worked as Community Organizer with Guild of Service –SSBH/Plan international from 1992 to 2003. He supervised community development in 10 low-income neighborhoods in Chennai, comprising of more than 2500 low-literate and low-income families.  His responsibilities included counseling families and enabling them to develop family development action plans.  He worked with NGOs, Government and other agencies to provide benefits to communities in the areas of health, education both adult and formal, habitat and livelihood.  He supervised the development of Community based organizations (CBOs) and Self-help groups in different low-income neighborhoods.

 

He was involved in the process of identifying and assisting potential entrepreneurs under the Entrepreneur Development Program of the Project, Tamilnadu Slum Clearance Board and Tamilnadu Corporation for Development of Women. In this capacity, he established linkages with training centers and Small Industries Service Institutes (SISI) and enabled youths and women to pursue marketable skill trainings that enable self-employment or other employment.