Jatin Pancholi

Technology Business Incubators in China and India: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) in China and India are compared by employing an analytical framework that combines national system of innovation (NSI) concept and a modified TBI integrative framework. Two research questions are investigated: (1) What are the management polices & practices of and incubation services offered by the TBIs in China and India? (2) How successful are the TBIs in China and India? Data are gathered through interview and questionnaire survey and from secondary sources using ‘triangulation’ technique to increase the validity of the results. Our findings reveal that there are a number of similarities (including objectives, selection criteria for tenants, funding of new ventures, and various basic services provided) and differences (including ownership/ legal status, nature of structure and governance, funding, value-added and specialists services provided to the tenants, incubation period, and number of TBIs, tenants, employees, and revenues) between the TBIs of China and India. The findings also suggest that both systems evolved in a particular path way due to specific national context, which led to most of these differences. Our study is important as it provides comparative insights into TBI systems fostering entrepreneurship development in two large and fast growing emerging economies, which show not only how both can learn from each other but also provide policy lessons for other countries.

Financing Social Innovation for Poverty Reduction: A Case Study of Microfinancing and Microenterprise Development in Bangladesh

Microfinancing is widely perceived to contribute towards social innovation for poverty reduction. We examined the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction (CFPR) programme implemented by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) between 2002 and 2007, as it used an innovative approach to microfinancing by transferring assets rather than cash to ultra poor participants. We examined two aspects: (i) the impact of microfinancing through asset transfer instead of cash on social innovation leading to poverty reduction; (ii) the factors that contributed to positive or negative impact on the economic conditions and poverty levels of the participant households and the trajectories of changes experienced by the success and failure cases. For this, we employed survey data from twenty-one beneficiaries and eight in-depth interviews among these households. The study found that participants who demonstrated proper planning, hard work and personal interest in the enterprise through microfinancing have witnessed improved quality of life and poverty reduction, while lack of motivation, absence of proper planning and certain social barriers resulted in failure. Our study makes two major contributions: (i) it fills a gap in the literature on microfinancing of social innovation to help ultra poor households to graduate out of poverty; (ii) it provides policy alternatives for designing appropriate microfinancing programmes for ultra poor which can produce high success rates in reducing poverty through social innovation not only in Bangladesh, but also in other developing countries.

An exploration in visibility: some experiences of Indian women accountants

Many studies have emerged in the accounting field that explore womens experiences in developed economies. However, little research has been undertaken to investigate the experiences and realities facing practising women accountants in India. The study offers exploratory insights into this area (against the backdrop of the internationalisation and globalisation of accounting). The study involved 17 women accounting practitioners from four major commercial cities in India: Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The results indicate that several practitioners experienced difficulties in certain areas of practice, whereas others reported that they did not experience any barriers to advancement. A discussion concerning limitations and areas for further research are presented in the conclusion.

Guest Editorial AI & Society: Enterprise, Innovations and Society

The theme of this special issue is ‘Enterprise Innovations and Society’. Enterprises across the world are witnessing transformation in terms of product innovation, consumer interaction, technological advances, employee productivity and knowledge management. Increasingly, enterprises are realising that innovation has to be rooted in the very basics of a organisational structure and culture and should not remain a flavour of the month. Several researchers have argued that innovation is one of the sources for sustainable competitive advantage. This collection of papers and discussions explores various contemporary aspects related to enterprise dynamics, innovation issues, strategies and trends, ethical dimensions, societal implications, technological evolution, under the broad theme of ‘Enterprise, Innovations and Society’. There are three sections in this special issue: (a) main section, (b) open forum Section, and (c) news and review section. The Main section includes five papers and the open forum section consists of four papers. The News and Review Section carries one book review. All the papers are contributing to the theme of the special issue ‘Enterprise, Innovations and Society’. The innovations by enterprises in reducing the package size of the products and their implications on ethical aspects of the business are discussed in paper titled ‘Package downsizing: is it ethical?’. The paper titled ‘An Analytical Study on Social Responsibility Performance Evaluation as an Accounting Measure of Management Efficiency’ presents interesting issues of societal impact of accounting measure of management efficiency. ‘Commodified science and social well-being’ is a paper that very aptly brings out the trend of commodification of public research and development and its impact on social well-being. While the paper ‘Evaluating non-business E-commerce adoption decision processes and gender roles’ argues how the technological innovations have impacted not-for-profit organizations and their use of e-commerce infrastructure. The disturbing impacts on industrial and socioeconomic aspects of recent developments in nano-technology and molecular