Do you subscribe to the theory of “Entrepreneurs, like leaders, are born and not made”?

I agree, but from a different angle. Entrepreneurs can be “made”, but being ‘entrepreneurial’ is a natural quality that comes with every child. Being inquisitive, explorative, risk taking, achievement oriented, innovative, creative etc. are exactly the qualities you very often find in kids. As they grow, a major change that takes place in their character is ‘risk aversive’. They become cautious and less “experimentative”. But, someone even without any of these qualities can become an ‘entrepreneur’. When that person also has those ‘entrepreneurial’ qualities, the chances of the person succeeding is better. Being entrepreneurial and being an entrepreneur are fundamentally different.

The “Indian Entrepreneur” is compared to his “western” colleagues, while we laud Chinese entrepreneurship models. Do you think we are shortsighted?

It is all about a country’s or a community’s ecosystem that facilitates development of entrepreneurs. Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem is no less when compared to countries such as the US or China. It all depends on how we want to interpret the word “Entrepreneurship”. For example, “Community Entrepreneurship” is highly evolved and traditionally practiced in India. An entire community involved in one business – helping one another to fund, to market, to aggregate, to adopt new methods etc. is not found often in other places. Weaving to farming, running trucks to making automobile parts – you will an entire community involved in businesses. You will find such clusters all over the country. The growth of entrepreneurial system in India has been steady and need based and has been immensely contributing to the growth of the country. I think, we need to understand our own model better – at least from the business school perspective – so that any misplaced judgement or interpretation of Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem is avoided.

What factors in the current placid macro-economic scenario push you to believe that entrepreneurship must be encouraged?

Jobs. A country should be in a position to consume human talent and physical power as much as possible. The progress and well being of a country is directly related to how effectively it is able to consume these two resources. Creating more and more jobs as a non-stop activity is the economics of a country. The only way is to believe in our own entrepreneurial ecosystem and see how all our support systems – such as education, communication, consumption, political priorities etc. – could be aligned towards achieving this. Indians believe in liberation – freedom and this is fundamental to entrepreneurship. What separates India from being a leader in entrepreneurship in the world is just the recognition of this fact. This is the position that India enjoyed for centuries until just a couple of centuries ago.

You have quoted in one of your earlier interactions with the media that the risk-taking ability in India is low ( in the context of entrepreneurship). At the same time, it has been observed that while Silicon Valley USA has seen drastically fewer companies being founded in the recent years, Indian entrepreneurs are the ones who stand out and are taking more risks. Why do you think there’s this disparity?

No doubts, Indians do well in the US. So are Chinese, and other communities. There are many reasons for this. Indians are there in other countries too – in some, very significant proportion of the population. Performance of Indians in the US – particularly in Silicon Valley, can not be a benchmark to judge entrepreneurial qualities of Indians living in India. This is where the ecosystem plays a role. Indians are successful elsewhere too but for different reasons and under different conditions. It will be interesting to study, how Indian entrepreneurs have been successful in a country like Nigeria as against the US and how do they compare in terms of percentage of the migrated population. But it is widely acknowledged that Indians are a very significant workforce for the world economy to grow and sustain.

How do you keep yourself abreast with the happenings on the research front in the areas of your interest/ expertise?

I strongly believe that people engaged in teaching must have motivation and reason to engage with the industry. This is best achieved through taking up consulting assignments even voluntarily and involving the students to complete these assignments. The unique resource that a teacher enjoys is the students. I have taken up major consulting projects in the area of my interest – Strategy – and I believe whatever understanding I have today on the subject is all what I have learnt as a ‘practitioner’. This not only helps a teacher to “live” in a class but engage in meaningful contribution by way of sharing the understanding with fellow teachers in conferences and other forums. Research is not just publishing papers in journals, but is also about how effectively we share our experiences with our students and fellow colleagues. For me, it has been absolutely fulfilling academic journey thus far and Woxsen has thrown up a fresh set of challenges and I am thrilled to be part of this too.