Entrepreneurship Education: A Comparative Study of Literature

--Shahir Bhatt and Amola Bhatt

Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business, i.e., a start-up company offering a product, process or service. Entrepreneurship education deals with developing entrepreneurial skills in students. In this context, the current paper is based on the literature review of research papers spanning across countries in the last decade. The literature is coded according to the research settings and findings segregated under categories of goals and learning outcomes, curriculum design, pedagogical tools, and effectiveness of teaching entrepreneurship. After a detailed review of about 54 papers, it was be inferred that the goals of entrepreneurship education range from imparting basic domain knowledge to transforming this knowledge into practical skills. The curriculum design of entrepreneurship course needs to be innovative in the sense that it should include industrial visits, management games and active involvement of other stakeholders. Action learning and experiential learning have to be incorporated for making the course more effective. At the same time, assessment should also involve reflection of self, peers and other stakeholders. There is an increased support to the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education on students’ intentions to create new venture. The course goes beyond and has the potential to influence personal development and career planning abilities of students.

© 2016IUP. All Rights Reserved.

A Study of Motivational Factors of Women Entrepreneurs

--Sukhjeet Kaur Matharu, Ravi Changle
and Arnav Chowdhury

Woman constitutes the family, which is the building block of society and nation. Social and economic development of women is necessary for the overall economic development of any society or a country. Entrepreneurship is the state of mind which every woman has in her but has not been capitalized in India in a way it should be. Due to changes in environment, now people are more comfortable accepting the leading role of women in the society, though there are some exceptions. Our increasing dependency on service sector has created many entrepreneurial opportunities, especially for women where they can excel with their skills while maintaining balance in their life. The purpose of this empirical study is to find out the motivational factors for women entrepreneurship. Primary data was collected from 212 women entrepreneurs with the help of a self-designed questionnaire. The study identified factors like ambition, supportive, professional competence, confidence, affluence, independence, responsive and work environment as the important entrepreneurial motivational factors.

© 2016IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Promotion and Distribution of Handloom Products in Tribal Clusters in North East India

--Rama Ramswamy and Jenny B Hmangaihzuali

The handloom sector in India, as an economic activity, occupies the second place after agriculture, providing employment (direct and indirect) to 27.83 lakh households. However, a comparison of the Second and Third Handloom Census shows that there has been a decline in the number of weaver households during this period. All the states in India (except West Bengal and North Eastern states) have registered a decline in the number of handloom households. The present study, based on primary data collected by administering a structured questionnaire to 175 respondents out of 325 entrepreneurs operating their enterprises in Thenzawl cluster located in a remote corner of North East India, attempts to examine the promotion and distribution policies of the micro handloom enterprises in the cluster. It is observed from the study that the weavers are facing many constraints in marketing their products. Moreover, it is observed that the schemes of the central government for marketing of handloom products are not operative in the cluster. Concerted efforts to improve the promotion and distribution of the products are vital to sustain the ‘Make in India’ initiatives of the tribal societies in this remote corner of India’s North East.

© 2016IUP. All Rights Reserved.

High Mountain Agribusiness in Bhutan: A Case from Select Dzongkhags

--Nilanjan Ray

Integrating high mountain agribusiness into socioeconomic livelihood provides a unique opportunity to bring about large-scale poverty mitigation countrywide. The purpose of the paper is to add empirical evidence to discuss the best possible ways to develop the high mountain agriculture in Bhutan to gain a significant contribution towards economic growth, employment creation, and household income generation. The study reveals that it is time for Bhutan to focus on agribusiness and it should have an enabling policy for promotion of agribusiness to generate more revenue and to make farming sustainable. As agriculture in the mountain region is very challenging, this paper examines how Bhutanese are managing agriculture and supporting their sustainable livelihood.

© 2016IUP. All Rights Reserved.