January 2018 Download this article as a PDF

From the Editor-in-Chief

Welcome to the January 2018 issue of the Technology Innovation Management Review. This month’s editorial theme is Innovation and Entrepreneurship in India, and it is my pleasure to introduce our Guest Editor, Punit Saurabh, Assistant Professor of Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship at Nirma University’s Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India. Dr. Saurabh also played an integral role in our previous India-focused issues in 2014 and 2016.

In February, we focus on the theme of Inclusive Innovation in Developed Countries with Guest Editors Sandra Schillo, Assistant Professor in the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa, Louise Earl, Section Chief in the Investment, Science and Technology Division at Statistics Canada, and Jeff Kinder, Director of the Innovation Lab at the Institute on Governance.

For future issues, we are accepting general submissions of articles on technology entrepreneurship, innovation management, and other topics relevant to launching and growing technology companies and solving practical problems in emerging domains. Please contact us with potential article topics and submissions.

Chris McPhee
Editor-in-Chief


From the Guest Editor

Entrepreneurship is assuming a greater role around the world due to its positive correlation with innovation and economic growth. Developed countries have already followed and relied upon the promotion of a university-based entrepreneurship and innovation development model and have successfully established low-, medium-, and high-technology accelerators for industry creation and sustenance. Emerging nations have been slower to understand the importance of entrepreneurship but are now slowly waking up to the important role that universities and incubators can play in promoting growth through entrepreneurship. In recognition of the wide gap between these two contexts, there are questions being raised as to whether copying the models of the West would best serve the interests of emerging nations. Should an alternate entrepreneurship model better suited to the emerging economy context be adopted? Researchers in developing nations have opined that emerging nations such as India need not apply the models developed and implemented by developed nations such as the United States, and they argue that they should instead try to conceptualize their own growth models, which can be customized and adopted by them due to their unique demographical, geo-political, and social positioning.

In this issue of the TIM Review, our authors collectively provide an overview of various issues relevant to Indian entrepreneurship and innovation, and the role of key stakeholders in promoting them. This issue explores the perspectives of a few selected researchers who provide insights into various aspects of innovation and entrepreneurship for optimum and equitable growth across all sectors and regions of India.

In the first article, Tripurasundari Joshi from the Institute of Management at Nirma University explores the dynamics of knowledge sharing in the Indian biotechnology industry. The study is motivated by the question of how firms in the biotechnology sector deal with the complex relationship between technological knowledge and innovation due to their complex nature and the issues emerging out of knowledge creation and transfer. The author has adopted an exploratory approach to understand the practices of knowledge sharing as well as its perceived impediments at the firm-level in the Indian context.

Next, Gaurav Mishra from the Institute of Management at Nirma University and Balakrishnan Unny R from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India, highlight the role of rural entrepreneurs in ensuring the sustainability of telecentres, which provide rural citizens with access to computers and other digital technologies. Using an exploratory approach, the authors examine and compare two projects designed to improve the delivery of government-related services. Based on the results, a theoretical framework is suggested to understand the dynamics between different types of sustainability parameters (financial, social, staff, technology, and institutional) and to improve the design and delivery of services offered through telecentres in developing countries such as India.

In the third article, Shiv S Tripathi and Mita Brahma from the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon, India, develop a framework to describe models of entrepreneurship prevalent in India. Based on interviews with technology entrepreneurs in India, their framework considers two dimensions – demand/supply and expected loss/risk – to reveal four models of entrepreneurship: incremental, proactive, radical, and reactive. The characteristics of each model are described and detailed examples of India companies applying these models are provided.

Finally, Rituparna Basu and Sarada Chatterjee answer the question “What barriers do women face in becoming high-tech entrepreneurs in rural India?” They provide a critical assessment of the overall landscape of female entrepreneurship in India and identify seven primary barriers facing women in rural areas: patriarchy, financing issues, illiteracy and language barriers, low risk tolerance, corruption and lack of infrastructure, and competition from their better-supported male counterparts. In addition to discussing the role of government policy and providing a prelude to greater participation by female entrepreneurs in the economic growth story of India, they provide an insightful biographical sketch of an aspiring female entrepreneur, which brings the current challenges to life.

Although there are several interesting and divergent views and methodologies represented in this issue, the authors all agree that there is an urgent need to promote the values of innovation and entrepreneurship across emerging nations for sustainable and economic growth. I hope that you find the issue to be beneficial and will gain interesting insights into the nature of innovation and entrepreneurship being practiced in India.

Punit Saurabh
Guest Editor

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Keywords: emerging markets, entrepreneurship, India, innovation, rural, startups

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