Gardening the Culture to Innovation

Abstract

Small and Medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have created a special space within all national economies. Their very nature of autonomy and high level of professionalism has aided them to be very innovative. Their founder managers, few equipped with professional experience(s) and few exposed to family owned (professional) business have shaped a niche in themselves. But it still needs to be researched as to how these small enterprises are paving their route to success and if it could be replicated. The objective of this study was to explore the entrepreneur's background in the innovative enterprise and its characteristics along with the nature of innovation that is predominant in Indian SME's and to investigate various factors including entrepreneurial recognition & Orientation that act as endowments to innovation(s). The identified Innovative enterprises have been classified as Chimp type (Start-ups <5 years), Hyena type (>= 5 and <15 years) and Lion type (>=15 years) enterprise. Such characteristics an enterprise would possess during its cycle, hunting for existence (survival) and business (hunting), similar to a Chimp, Hyena and a Lion.

With this research, it became very important to appreciate as to how the different innovative enterprises were able to discover their position in the market place and what description truly displayed their performance. Most of these Innovative firms had some universal factors to their success, irrespective of their years of existence and that has been apparently conceivable by 'gardening the culture to innovation'.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Recognition, Orientation, Innovative Practices, Innovation, Entrepreneurship