Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Athreye, Suma
Author-Email: suma.athreye@brunel.ac.uk
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT, and Brunel University 
Title: Economic Adversity and Entrepreneurship-led Growth - Lessons from
	 the Indian Software Sector
Abstract: It is commonly believed that the business environment in developing 
	 countries does not allow productive technology-based entrepreneurship to 
	 flourish. In this paper, we draw on the experience of Indian software 
	 firms where entrepreneurial growth has belied these predictions. This 
	 paper argues that the business models chosen by Indian firms were those 
	 that best aligned the country's abundant labour resources and advantages 
	 to global demand. Many potentially higher value added opportunities 
	 struggled to attain success, but the qualitative value of experimental 
	 failures and the capability gaps they exposed was invaluable for 
	 collective managerial learning in the industry. Second, the paper also 
	 shows that the presence of growth opportunities and the success of firms 
	 stimulated institutional evolution to promote entrepreneurial growth. 
	 Last we show that the distinctive aggregate contribution of 
	 entrepreneurial firms was that they outperformed business houses and 
	 multinational subsidiaries in their more productive use of available 
	 capital resources whilst achieving similar levels of growth in output 
	 and employment.  
	 This paper draws upon an earlier shorter paper co-authored with Mike 
	 Hobday and titled 'Overcoming Development Adversity: How Entrepreneurs 
	 Led Software Development in India'.
Classification-JEL: L26, L86, O10, O32, O34, I28
Keywords: technology entrepreneurship, institutions and economic development,
	 Indian software, intellectual property rights
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2010
Number: 008
File-URL: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2010/wp2010-008.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2010008