Title: Synergising entrepreneurship, incubated business and socioeconomic upliftment in rural India

Authors: Dinesh Khanduja, Prabhakar Kaushik

Addresses: Mechanical Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra (Haryana), 136119, India. ' Mechanical Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra (Haryana), 136119, India

Abstract: The challenges and opportunities of economic liberalisation all over the world have led to new business strategies to meet sustainability. Tremendous competition and customer awareness have shaken the traditional concept of business. India is a developing nation with rural-based economy and in this context, the paper analyses the prospects of |incubated business| in fostering rural entrepreneurship by downsizing technology directly to the rural masses. Since there is huge potential in harnessing the existing abundance of resources, manpower and infrastructure in the rural areas of the country, a systematic approach is emphasised to build linkages between education, research, enterprises, finance and government by dwelling upon the concept of business incubation. The paper draws a profile of |rural business hubs| currently being established in India on war footing and discusses a case study of a hub to analyse the prospects of business incubation for socioeconomic upliftment of rural masses in India.

Keywords: business incubators; rural business hubs; agropreneurship; rural entrepreneurship; memorandum of understanding; MoU; socioeconomic development; rural India; economic development; social development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2008.017390

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2008 Vol.6 No.1, pp.68 - 79

Published online: 04 Mar 2008 *

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