Government Policies and Rural Entrepreneurship- Case Study of an Horticulture Entrepreneur

India is a country which is in forefront of being called a developed nation. To be a developed nation, India has to first look at its rural development, because 70 percent of the population live in rural areas, which means more than 700 million people are spread across 6,27,000 villages. Rural development is more than ever before linked to entrepreneurship. Establishments and agencies promoting rural development now look at entrepreneurship as a strategic development medium that could speed up the rural development process. Development institutions believe that rural entrepreneurship offers a huge potential for employment. In this paper a case study of a young entrepreneur who has taken up horticulture (vegetable plants nursery) as his full time profession, with a mission to help the neighbouring farmers is studied, the purpose of this paper is to understand the government role (policies and schemes), the difficulties faced by the entrepreneur during the startup time and knowledge transfer from the horticulture department, nursery management. The methodology followed is in-depth interaction with the entrepreneur. The outcome of paper will be to understand how rural entrepreneurship is helping improve the quality of life for families, communities and individuals leading to sustainable economy and environment.

Situating Self-Employed Urban Women Conducting Business through Contemporary Social Media

Informal economy includes varied set of economic activities, enterprises, jobs, and workers. The economy typically consists of enterprises and/or people that are not regulated or protected by the state. The concept originally applied to self-employment in small unregistered enterprises. It has been expanded to include wage employment in unprotected jobs. A home-based self-employed women worker can be involved as a fashion designer, a tiffin service provider, a home tutor, a person working with vendors, selling and reselling apparel, accessories to name a few. Informal self-employment is very large and heterogeneous as a category itself. There are different people working within in an informally self-employed category. The review tries to understand home based business women within the ambit of informal employment. The focus of research turns to technological advancement, social media and its impact on womens economic and business efforts. The review, using a feminist lens, understands academic researches on womens economic efforts. The reviews focus will largely be owners and own account (individually run enterprises) women workers of informal enterprises in urban areas which for ease of reference, I have termed as home-based self-employed urban woman.

Rural Dalit Women Entrepreneurs and Development Scenario: A Study

Pandit Nehru affirmed that women development/ empowerment is the basis for the substantial growth of a family, a village, or a nation. Development/upliftment of women is an essential ingredient of human development. Entrepreneurship development among the rural women folk would strengthen the village economy and promote regional development. The women entrepreneurs have proved that there is a source of immense untapped power in the womanhood of India (Margaret, 1992). Women undoubtedly are the backbone of the socio-economic-cultural aspects in the hill scenario. The subsistence agriculture which leads to low and unstable incomes, which in turn lead to a sizeable out-migration of male members that leads to only women headed families behind, and the role of women in the household economy becomes more important (Rawat, 2004). In the midst of limited opportunities, tough terrains and lack of resources, the contribution of women entrepreneurs to the society is enormous. An attempt was made to highlight the strategies and development aspects of rural women entrepreneurs in Almora district. Entrepreneurs who are engaged in self-employment and innovative entrepreneurial activities were selected for the study. A total of 50 samples were selected and the data were collected through interviews and focus groups. The study reveals various aspects related to rural women entrepreneurship and constraints that need attention so to empower women in their efforts toward integral development.

Marketing and Sickness in Micro and Small Enterprises in India: An Inter-State Analysis with Special Reference to the Engineering Enterprises in the District of Howrah, West Bengal

Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) [formerly Tiny and Small Scale Industries (SSIs)] are recognized as the main contributors in socio-economic advancement of any country especially the developing one like India. But due to some controllable and/or uncontrollable factors, MSEs cannot get themselves free from sickness. Sickness in MSEs expands its steps in all states in India amongst which West Bengal (WB) is specially notable mainly due to the continuous degradation of Micro and Small Engineering Enterprises of the then Birmingham/Sheffield of the East, Howrah. In WB, Howrah is considered to be the most incipient sickness-prone district for MSEs. Government effort to locate the probable causes of sickness of MSEs has exposed that in India, lack of demand of the product of MSEs in market is the most sever one, while in WB, marketing problem holds the maximum severity, followed by lack of demand which is also partially due to the marketing problem. The present paper aims at identifying how far the major responsible causes in marketing related area are liable in bringing about sickness in Micro and Small Engineering Enterprises.

Interrelationship between Self-efficacy, Gender and the Entrepreneurial Career Choice

This research paper examines the interpersonal relationship between gender, self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial career choice. The present study has been conducted in Uttarakhand, a province of India. An item pool was developed on the basis of focus group interviews and literature survey. A scale was developed on the basis of item pool after an item analysis for checking its consistency and reliability and was included in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered on 880 graduation final year students studying in different colleges. An interpersonal relationship between gender, self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial career choice was examined using Pearsons chi-square test and Students t-test. Results show significant relationship between gender and self-efficacy, self-efficacy and entrepreneurial career choice, and gender and entrepreneurial career choice. Male respondents were found to have higher level of self-efficacy than female respondents. This paper also explores that male respondents are more likely to opt for an entrepreneurial career than females.

A Study on Factors Determining Employee Job Satisfaction at Entrepreneurs Organisation

Employees are considered as real assets for any organization in the modern economy because modern organizations believe that due to globalization employee retention is a major problem hence employees are treated as real assets for the organizations. Once employees are satisfied with the organization then employee retention takes place. Employee satisfaction is linked with employee job satisfaction. So this study concentrates on factors determining employee job satisfaction at Balaji Agencies and Industries. The main objective of the study is to determine the factors influencing job satisfaction of employees at Balaji Agencies and Industries. The other objectives were to calculate the Job Satisfaction Index (JSI) and to find the relationship between the personal factors and job satisfaction of employees. Data were collected from 53 employees at Balaji Agencies and Industries at Nellore. Data were analyzed using chi square analysis. The findings of the study reveal that there is no relationship between age, gender, educational qualification of employee and experience to the job satisfaction. It may be in relation with some other factors which are included in the study considered for scope of future research.

Commercial Banks Finance and Economic Empowerment in Women-Owned Micro and Small Enterprises in India- A Study on Engineering Sector of Howrah, West Bengal

Micro and small enterprises (MSEs) play a significant role in introducing high level of socio-economic empowerment to all levels of social beings with its huge contribution in production, export promotion, employment generation, and value addition. Besides, it is well capable in redressing off the concomitant hazards of our nation like unemployment, poverty etc. The beneficial effect of the very sector is increased sharply if it is being participated by the marginalized gender section of our society, women. Notwithstanding, the sector cannot protect itself from several down-gradation in its survival due to several controllable and/or uncontrollable causes amongst which the inadequate need-based finance is considered to be the most severe one (All India Fourth Census Report of Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), 2006-2007). In this context, the Central Bank has declared many promotional financial policies for the neediest sector of economy which has been allowed to be practiced by all the financial institutions of which the Commercial Banks (CBs) are the most significant ones. But CBs sometimes are blamed for their unfriendly partial attitude towards the very sector for their sole emphasis on commercialization. The women-owned MSEs in this context sometimes suffer a lot for the gender-discriminative credit policy of the CBs. In India, amongst different states, West Bengal (WB) is taken as a significant contributor so far as the number of women-owned MSEs and their performances are concerned. WB here specially recognizes the engineering sector of Howrah, the former Birmingham of the East, for its special contribution in socio-economic development of it. Though men-dominated sector, women-owned units here are also found to perform prestigiously irrespective of different hindrances mainly originated from need-based financial lacuna. CBs here are also found to be responsible ones reflecting the nation-wide picture over there which ultimately puts a question on proper implementation of financial policies to serve the marginalized gender section of the society. The present paper, therefore, aims at identifying to what extent the financial assistance of Commercial Banks empowers economically the women-owned micro and small engineering enterprises of Howrah and recommending some suggestions for further improvement following descriptive research methodology and relevant statistical tools and techniques.

Working Together Locally-Performing Better Internationally: Alliance-FSAs-SME Internationalisation

The present study directs towards investigating the impact of local alliance on global performance of SMEs. In order to explore such impact, a conceptual three stage model has been developed covering three main variables: strategic alliance, developing firm specific advantages (FSAs), and internationalization. Qualitative and explorative descriptive studies on fifty SMEs of Khulna city, Bangladesh were carried out to detect the key underlying variables exist in the context. From the data recorded and archived a total of ten variables covering various types of strategic alliances were developed, in the next stage a total of 20 FSAs were identified which can be obtained through such alliances and in final stage again ten variables were detected that describe different internationalization competencies which can be developed through building those FSAs. This study contributed toward developing a model for successful alliance FSAs internationalization framework from the observations of the respondents firms.

Are Motivations behind Women Entrepreneurship is Identical in Metros and Smaller Cities of Developing Countries? A Study on Dhaka and Khulna City of Bangladesh

This study focuses on the factors that motivate the female entrepreneurs in metros and small cities of a developing country. Explorative and quantitative study was carried out to detect the exact scenario in the metro city of Dhaka and relatively smaller yet important city of Khulna. Women entrepreneurs of Dhaka city showed higher degree of motivations behind their entrepreneurial venturing in the motivating factors of personal traits, macro environment, education and training, financing, business infrastructure and inputs, investment security and safeguards, scope for internationalization, economic freedom, legislation, family, and innovation and creativity whereas women entrepreneurs of Khulna city tend to show higher importance on social setup, job and profession, easiness of entry and exit, network and management skills. The t-test result shows that there is no difference between women entrepreneurs of Dhaka and Khulna on business infrastructure and inputs, investment security and safeguards, legislation, easiness of entry and exit, and network, whereas, there is a difference between women entrepreneurs of Dhaka and Khulna on social set-up, personal traits, macro environment, education and training, financing, scope for internationalization, economic freedom, job and profession, family, and innovation & creativity.

Business Model Ontology (BMO): An Examination, Analysis, and Evaluation

Defining business model constitutes a major challenge. This is primarily because there are many different aspects to a business, hence when we talk of business models, it means different things to different people. Difference lies in the very concept of what constitutes a business (key aspects) and how such a concept can be represented using a common notation. One solution to the problem is to use ontology to communicate. Ontologies are agreed upon frameworks for representing concepts in any domain area. Hence, ontologies are used to represent knowledge, processes, business motivations, business strategies, enterprise structure, and more including business models. The Business Model Ontology (BMO) is one such ontology. Designed and developed by Alexander Osterwalder, it is aimed specifically at representing, understanding, communicating and analyzing business models. This paper is an evaluation of the Business Model Ontology (BMO). The paper consists of two parts. In the first part the researchers describe the four pillars, the nine elements and their sub-elements comprising the ontology. In the second part the ontology is reviewed and evaluated using nine criteria. The fundamental aim is to examine the ontology capabilities – its strength and weaknesses.