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Promoting Microcapitalism in the Service of the Poor: The Grameen Model and Its Cross-Cultural Adaptation

California State University, Los Angeles

The Grameen (rural) Bank of Bangladesh offers poor people credit without collateral, and various other services, to help them undertake productive microenterprises and improve their socioeconomic conditions. Currently, an estimated 12 million men, women, and children benefit from the Bank's inte grated financial and social-promotional services. In this paper, I analyze Grameen's microcapitalistic philosophy and practice, its approach to organizing microenterprises, and its adaptability as a model to different cultural contexts, reviewing two of its international replication experiences. Grameen's microcapi talism seeks freedom of individual thought and action for the poor by giving them access to credit as a fundamental human right. Grameen's combined organizing approach allows its employees and clients to create and share norms that prompt them to pursue concertive action for change. The two international replication experiences described here underline the adaptability of the Grameen model to different cultures and the centrality of cultural dynamics to the shaping of organizational communication policies and practices.

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