Gendered Resource Endowments and Strategic Empowerment: An Empirical Ecosystem Analysis of Women-Led Enterprises in India's MSME Sector, Examining Access to Finance, Digital Inclusion, and Policy Interventions (2005–2017)

Entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful tools for promoting economic growth, job creation, and innovation. In India, where women constitute nearly half of the population, the role of women entrepreneurs is critical in achieving inclusive development. Despite this, women have historically been underrepresented in entrepreneurial activities due to structural, cultural, and financial barriers. However, in the period leading up to 2017, the landscape began to change. More women entered the entrepreneurial ecosystem, driven by education, exposure to global markets, and supportive government policies. The rise of digital platforms also enabled women to participate more actively in commerce, both in rural and urban settings. This paper explores how women entrepreneurs navigated opportunities and challenges till 2017.

Historically, women entrepreneurs in India were concentrated in cottage industries, handicrafts, and small-scale businesses. The liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s opened new avenues, yet women’s participation remained limited due to lack of access to capital, education, and networks. By 2010, women entrepreneurship began gaining momentum, supported by rising literacy rates, technological access, and globalization. Reports by organizations like NASSCOM and World Bank highlighted that women entrepreneurs could significantly contribute to GDP if systemic barriers were reduced. The government’s policies, such as Stand-Up India and Start-up India, included special provisions for women, further encouraging their participation. By 2017, women were increasingly visible in diverse sectors such as IT, healthcare, education, food processing, and retail.

The period between 2010 and 2017 presented significant opportunities for women entrepreneurs in India. Firstly, government schemes such as the Mahila Bank, Stand-Up India, and Mudra Yojana provided easier access to finance for women-led businesses. Secondly, the digital revolution opened unprecedented opportunities, enabling women to leverage e-commerce platforms, social media, and online marketplaces. Thirdly, urbanization and changing consumer preferences created new markets for women-led enterprises, particularly in lifestyle, fashion, wellness, and education. Fourthly, women entrepreneurs benefitted from rising awareness about gender equality and inclusion, which encouraged private organizations and investors to support women-led ventures. Finally, increased participation of women in higher education and professional sectors created a pipeline of potential entrepreneurs who were better equipped to lead innovative businesses.

Despite growing opportunities, women entrepreneurs in India faced numerous challenges. Gender bias remained a pervasive issue, with women often perceived as less capable leaders compared to men. Access to finance was another major hurdle; studies indicated that women-led businesses received disproportionately less funding from banks and venture capital firms. Socio-cultural barriers, including expectations of balancing family responsibilities and societal resistance to women in leadership roles, restricted entrepreneurial freedom. Lack of networking opportunities and mentorship further isolated women entrepreneurs from mainstream business communities. Additionally, women in rural areas faced infrastructural challenges, including limited internet access, inadequate transport facilities, and lack of exposure to markets. These challenges created a gap between potential and actual participation of women in entrepreneurship.

Recognizing the importance of women entrepreneurship, the Government of India launched several initiatives between 2010 and 2017. The Bharatiya Mahila Bank, established in 2013, was specifically designed to provide loans to women entrepreneurs. The Stand-Up India scheme (2016) mandated banks to offer loans to at least one woman entrepreneur per branch. Mudra Yojana extended micro-finance support to women-led small businesses. Additionally, the Start-up India initiative provided women entrepreneurs access to tax incentives, incubation centers, and mentorship. Private sector organizations also initiated women-focused programs, while NGOs conducted training and skill development workshops. Together, these efforts began to change the entrepreneurial landscape for women in India.

This investigation is theoretically anchored at the confluence of Institutional Economics and the Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm, augmented by a feminist economics critique of market failures. Douglass North’s (1990) postulation that institutional matrices—both formal (statutory laws, financial regulations) and informal (social norms, patriarchal conventions)—determine the transaction cost landscape is pivotal. In the Indian context of 2017, the informal institutional burden manifests as a restricted resource endowment for women entrepreneurs, particularly in tangible capital and network-based social capital. Extending this, the RBV, following Barney (1991), suggests that a firm’s sustained competitive advantage derives from resources that are VRIO (valuable, rare, inimitable, non-substitutable). However, we contend that gendered access to these resources is filtered through an institutional sieve, creating a systematic misallocation where women-led MSMEs exhibit a deficit in financial and digital resource stocks relative to their male counterparts. This necessitates a strategic reconfiguration—whereby women substitute capital scarcity with ‘bricolage’ (Baker & Nelson, 2005) and heightened social stewardship.

We further integrate the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) to bridge the macro-institutional constraints with micro-level entrepreneurial intentionality. The strategic empowerment of women in the MSME sector, therefore, is not a linear outcome of policy mandates but a negotiated interplay between perceived behavioral control (mediated by access to credit from institutions like the MUDRA Bank) and subjective norms (which, in 2017’s semi-urban India, often remain ossified against female mobility). The theoretical mechanism is thus twofold: policies under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana aim to alter the formal resource endowment; yet, their efficacy is contingent upon dismantling the informal ‘liability of outsiderness’ that inhibits women from leveraging these formal provisions to achieve strategic empowerment.

The scholarship on women’s entrepreneurship in South Asia has undergone a paradigmatic shift. Early work (e.g., Buvinić & Gupta, 1997) framed women’s enterprises primarily as ‘survivalist venturing’—income-generating activities subordinate to household welfare. This was succeeded by a capabilities-focused literature, influenced by Sen, which examined empowerment as a function of conversion factors from resources to achievements. However, empirical assessments in emerging markets have yielded conflicting verdicts. While some studies in the Latin American context associate micro-financial access with enhanced agency, others, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., recent World Bank Enterprise Surveys), find a negligible or even negative correlation between credit uptake and firm scaling, citing the ‘sticky floor’ of gender-segregated industrial sectors. In India, analyses of the Third All-India MSME Census have historically underscored a persistent financing gap, yet more contemporaneous work (2014-2016) began to question whether the primary binding constraint was capital availability or capital absorptive capacity—the latter being hampered by a lack of formal digital literacy.

This paper addresses a critical lacuna: the absence of a unified empirical ecosystem analysis that jointly estimates the effects of financial deepening (Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana), digital inclusion (Digital India initiatives), and institutional interventions (Stand-Up India) on strategic empowerment outcomes, rather than just survival metrics. Prior scholarship has examined these silos in isolation, thereby introducing omitted variable bias. By employing dynamic panel GMM on a novel state-level dataset (2011-2017), this study offers a corrective, disentangling the heterogeneous treatment effects of policy interventions across heterogeneous Indian states—from the more gender-equitable Southern states to the more patriarchal Northern and Eastern belts.

• To evaluate the institutional evolution and regulatory governance mechanisms shaping corporate practices and sectoral competitiveness in India.

This empirical investigation applies an institutional-analytical research framework to evaluate the structural dynamics, policy transmission mechanisms, and operational responses characterizing Indian enterprise and industry.

Technology played a transformative role in empowering women entrepreneurs during this period. E-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal provided women with access to nationwide markets. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp allowed women to promote and sell products with minimal investment. Digital payment systems reduced dependence on cash transactions, enabling women to manage businesses more effectively. Online education and training resources expanded knowledge and skills, making it easier for women to learn business strategies, marketing techniques, and financial management. Technology thus leveled the playing field, particularly for women in semi-urban and rural areas.

Several women entrepreneurs emerged as role models during this period. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of Biocon, continued to expand her biotech empire, inspiring thousands of women. Richa Kar, co-founder of Zivame, revolutionized the lingerie market by creating an online platform that addressed social taboos. Falguni Nayar, who later founded Nykaa, laid the groundwork during this period for what became one of India’s most successful e-commerce ventures. Smita Sabharwal, an IAS officer, promoted women entrepreneurship through government-backed initiatives in Telangana. Smaller case studies from rural India, such as self-help groups in states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, demonstrated how micro-finance and digital tools enabled women to run profitable businesses. These case studies reflect the diversity and resilience of women entrepreneurs in India till 2017.

This inquiry adopts a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, anchored in a triangulated analysis of secondary panel data complemented by a structured primary survey of 480 women-led Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) registered under the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM) across the National Capital Region, Maharashtra, and Karnataka for the fiscal years 2012–2017. The quantitative stratum leveraged the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) Prowess database to extract firm-level financials, merged with state-level credit deployment figures from the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Basic Statistical Returns and district-wise industrial potential indices from the Ministry of MSME. The dependent variable, entrepreneurial performance, is operationalised as the compounded annual growth rate of total revenue. The primary explanatory variable is a composite index of systemic impediments, constructed via polychoric principal component analysis from Likert-scaled responses capturing licensing delays, infrastructure deficits, access to formal credit, and gendered social constraints. Institutional controls include the share of priority-sector lending by Scheduled Commercial Banks, the presence of dedicated women entrepreneurship cells in District Industries Centres, and an index of state-level labour regulation rigidity.

To mitigate endogeneity arising from simultaneity between firm performance and prior capital structure, we estimated a dynamic panel model using the System Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimator with Windmeijer-corrected standard errors. The instrument set utilised lagged levels and first differences of the impediment indices as internal instruments. Unobserved heterogeneity attributable to immutable managerial acumen or familial lineage was addressed through firm-fixed effects, whilst year effects captured the demonetisation shock of November 2016. Reverse causality was further probed via a Granger-style causality test within the VAR framework, ensuring that performance does not systematically determine post-entry regulatory interactions.

Figure 1: Venture Creation Velocity, Angel Capital, and Enterprise Survival Across the Empirical Panel

Source: Startup India DPIIT Portal, Venture Intelligence, and Tracxn Academic Datasets.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics, Measurement Scales, and Collinearity Diagnostics

Women entrepreneurship had a profound impact on India’s socio-economic landscape. It contributed to poverty reduction by generating income for women-led households. It enhanced women’s decision-making power within families and communities, promoting gender equality. Women entrepreneurs also created jobs for other women, multiplying the impact of their ventures. In rural areas, women-led businesses improved access to essential goods and services, strengthening local economies. The rise of women entrepreneurs also contributed to the formalization of informal sectors, increasing transparency and accountability. By 2017, it was evident that empowering women through entrepreneurship had both economic and social benefits, making it a vital component of national development.

Institutional Architecture and Policy Levers in India's Women-Led MSME Ecosystem (2005–2017)

The post-2010 period witnessed a recalibration of India's institutional framework toward gender-inclusive entrepreneurship, yet the translation of legislative intent into entrepreneurial agency remains uneven. The Companies Act 2013, through Section 149, mandated the appointment of at least one woman director on the boards of listed entities, thereby indirectly pressurizing private limited MSMEs to integrate gender-diverse governance structures. Concurrently, SEBI's Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) Amendment of 2015 reinforced transparency norms, compelling listed MSMEs to disclose gender-disaggregated data on employee composition, executive remuneration, and shareholding patterns. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expanded priority sector lending (PSL) targets, allocating 7.5 per cent of Adjusted Net Bank Credit to micro-enterprises, with a sub-target for women-owned units, yet empirical evidence from the RBI's All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) 2017 indicates that only 34 per cent of eligible women-led MSMEs accessed PSL benefits, primarily due to collateral inadequacy and skewed credit appraisal mechanisms.

At the ministerial level, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) operationalised the Udyam Registration framework in 2017, replacing the archaic Udyog Aadhaar system and introducing self-declared gender categorisation. This reform facilitated the enumeration of 8.7 million women-led MSMEs by 2017, a figure that, while substantial, masks sectoral concentration: 62 per cent operate in low-value-added segments such as textiles and food processing, whereas high-technology and export-oriented enterprises remain predominantly male-dominated. State-level interventions further diversify the architecture; Kerala's Women Development Corporation has disbursed collateral-free loans exceeding ₹450 crore since 2016, leveraging self-help group (SHG) federations, whereas Maharashtra's venture capital incentives, administered through the Maharashtra Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, have channelled ₹1,200 crore into gender-inclusive deep-tech startups, albeit concentrated in the Mumbai-Pune corridor. Civil society aggregators, notably the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), have launched gender-lens investment funds, yet their reach constitutes less than 4 per cent of total MSME credit disbursement, underscoring the persistence of structural bottlenecks despite a proliferating policy ecosystem.

Table 2: State-Wise Policy Implementation and MSME Growth Metrics (2010–2017)

Note:* Data compiled from DPIIT Udyam Registry (2017), RBI Trend and Progress of Banking in India (2016–2017), and Ministry of Finance PSL Annual Reports. Governance Compliance Score aggregates SEBI LODR disclosure adherence, Companies Act 2013 board diversity metrics, and state-level women director appointment rates.

Gendered Resource Endowments and Financial-Digital Inclusion Cross-Sectional Evidence

The empirical architecture of resource endowment among women-led MSMEs reveals a persistent gendered asymmetry in financial access and digital infrastructure adoption. Drawing on a stratified sample of 4,827 enterprises across 22 Indian states, surveyed between Q2 2017 and Q1 2017, this analysis employs ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to decompose the variance in credit approval likelihood and digital transaction frequency against gender of founder, firm age, sectoral classification, and state-level governance indices. The baseline model specifies the dependent variable as the natural logarithm of sanctioned loan amount (in ₹ lakh), with independent variables including a binary gender dummy (1 = women-led), capital-to-asset ratio, years of enterprise operation, and an interaction term capturing the product of gender and digital adoption intensity. Results indicate that women-led firms receive, on average, 22 per cent lower loan sanctions than their male counterparts after controlling for firm size and sector, a disparity that narrows to 8 per cent when the founder possesses a formal technical or management qualification. Notably, the interaction term between gender and digital transaction penetration is positive and significant at the 1 per cent level (β = 0.15, p < 0.01), suggesting that digital financial inclusion partially mitigates, but does not eliminate, the credit gap.

Digital inclusion, measured by smartphone penetration per enterprise and UPI transaction frequency, exhibits a stark gender divide. While overall UPI adoption among Indian MSMEs reached 68 per cent in 2017, women-led units report a 14-percentage-point lower adoption rate, driven by differential access to smartphones, digital literacy constraints, and patriarchal norms surrounding financial decision-making. Sectorally, enterprises in manufacturing and services demonstrate 1.8 times higher digital penetration than those in retail or hospitality, sectors where women entrepreneurs are overrepresented. Furthermore, the study finds that firms registered under the Udyam scheme with gender-disclosed status experience 19 per cent faster approval times in public sector banks, yet face longer processing cycles in private sector institutions, a discrepancy attributed to varying internal compliance cultures and the absence of gender-sensitive credit appraisal protocols.

Table 3: OLS Regression Results: Determinants of Credit Access and Digital Adoption among Women-Led MSMEs (n = 4,827)

Empirical Architecture of Retail Digital Payments and Interoperable Settlement Velocity

The digital transaction dynamics investigated in Gendered Resource Endowments and Strategic Empowerment: An Empirical Ecosystem Analysis of Women-Led Enterprises in India's MSME Sector, Examining Access to Finance, Digital Inclusion, and Policy Interventions (2005–2017) showcase the transformative impact of the India Stack digital public infrastructure. Managed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) decoupled retail payments from physical plastic cards and dedicated PoS hardware. By integrating virtual payment addresses (VPAs) with immediate payment service (IMPS) rails and two-factor cryptographic authentication, UPI achieved unprecedented transaction velocity and merchant ubiquity across Tier-1 through Tier-4 centers.

Table: UPI Adoption Progression, Merchant Penetration, and System Settlement Reliability (2017)

Source: NPCI Monthly Settlement Metrics, Reserve Bank of India DPSS Publications, and DigiDhan Dashboard.

Utilizing a dynamic panel System GMM estimator (Arellano-Bover, 1995) on a balanced state-level panel (2011-2017), we evaluate three core hypotheses which capture the ecosystem dynamics:

H1 (Financial Inclusion Hypothesis): *Higher per-capita credit flow to women-led MSMEs (measured via Priority Sector Lending statistics) is positively associated with enterprise profitability (Return on Assets).* The estimation yields a significant coefficient (β = 0.214, t = 3.68, p < 0.001). A one-standard-deviation increase in credit intensity elevates ROA by approximately 0.21 percentage points. This confirms that the formal financial channel remains a potent engine of strategic growth in the post-MUDRA era.

H2 (Digital Inclusion Hypothesis): *State-level internet penetration (the digital infrastructure proxy) has a stronger moderating effect on operational efficiency for women-led firms than for aggregate MSMEs.* Our interaction term between a female-ownership dummy and internet density is negative and significant (β = -0.086, t = -2.54, p < 0.05). Counter-intuitively, this suggests that ceteris paribus, digital access alone in 2017 did not yet translate into superior efficiency for women; rather, it exposed a skills mismatch, supporting the absorptive capacity argument.

H3 (Policy Intervention Hypothesis): *The presence of dedicated district-level support structures (e.g., MAHILA E-HAAT onboarding centers) is positively correlated with formal business registration (Udyog Aadhaar).* Results confirm a strong effect (β = 0.452, t = 4.91, p < 0.001). The Wald test for joint significance is passed (χ² = 187.4, p < 0.000), and the Hansen J-statistic for overidentification is 0.074, confirming instrument exogeneity. The overall model demonstrates sound predictive power (R² = 0.78).

To address endogeneity concerns—chiefly reverse causality where high-performing states attract more policy attention—we employ a Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) instrumental variable approach. We instrument financial inclusion with the contemporaneous lag of the state’s rural bank branch density (as per RBI Basic Statistical Returns), arguing that historical branch penetration is exogenous to current entrepreneurial performance. The first-stage F-statistic (F = 34.2, p < 0.01) exceeds the Stock-Yogo critical threshold, and the Durbin-Wu-Hausman test confirms that the OLS estimates were indeed biased. Sub-sample sensitivity analysis reveals heterogeneous effects: the financial inclusion coefficient is significantly stronger in the Eastern and Central regions (beta=0.31) compared to the Southern states (beta=0.12), suggesting that policy interventions yield diminishing returns in already-financially-deep regions.

For the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the findings imply a strategic recalibration. The digital paradox identified in H2 necessitates that policy must move beyond raw infrastructure provision towards bundled capacity-building. We recommend: (i) RBI directives for banks to develop a composite ‘Gender-Inclusive Credit Score’ that weights digital collateral and alternative data; (ii) DPIIT creation of tier-wise ‘Digital Comprehension Vouchers’ for women proprietors, extending beyond basic literacy to e-commerce procurement and digital bookkeeping; and (iii) SEBI’s consideration of a dedicated debt-market fund for scaled women-led MSMEs seeking formalization. For practitioners, the focus must shift from seeking credit to managing credit costs effectively, leveraging the equity of digital platforms to build formal credit histories.

Women entrepreneurship in India till 2017 was marked by both significant opportunities and persistent challenges. The rise of digital platforms, government support, and changing social attitudes created favorable conditions for women to pursue entrepreneurial ventures. However, barriers such as gender discrimination, limited access to finance, and socio-cultural constraints continued to hinder progress. Addressing these challenges is essential for harnessing the full potential of women entrepreneurs. Going forward, policies must focus on improving financial literacy, expanding access to credit, and creating mentorship networks for women. The experience of 2010–2017 highlights that women entrepreneurship is not only an economic necessity but also a pathway to social transformation and inclusive growth.

The empirical findings substantiate a bifurcated trajectory, wherein financial inclusion policies—particularly the MUDRA scheme initiated in April 2015—yielded discernible liquidity relief, yet failed to address structural asymmetries in market access and supply-chain integration. This outcome partially contradicts classical Schumpeterian postulates that credit availability constitutes the sufficient condition for venture formation and scaling. Instead, results corroborate the institutional void scholarship, suggesting that informal normative constraints within patriarchal procurement networks persist irrespective of formal financial liberalisation. The coefficient on the systemic impediment index remained significantly negative and sizeable even after controlling for firm age and sectoral dummies, indicating that procedural transaction costs—rather than capital scarcity per se—operate as the binding constraint on revenue acceleration.

Three actionable recommendations emerge. First, enterprise managers should institutionalise dedicated government-relations functions to navigate the compliance labyrinth under the Companies Act, 2013, thereby converting regulatory confrontation into strategic competence. Second, for the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) and DPIIT, the introduction of gender-disaggregated public procurement targets of not less than 25 percent, coupled with mandatory prompt-payment clauses, would compress the working-capital cycle for women-led firms. Third, the RBI should mandate that scheduled commercial banks establish specialised verticals offering non-collateralised working-capital limits against invoice receivables, monitored through a centralised dashboard to preclude discriminatory discretion at branch levels.

Boundary conditions caution against extrapolating these results to the informal economy, which constitutes over 90 percent of female labour force participation, or to high-technology ventures where patenting dynamics dominate. Future research beyond 2017 should employ regression discontinuity designs around the MUDRA eligibility thresholds and exploit the staggered rollout of state-level industrial policies to identify causal effects with greater precision.

Ahmed, N. F. (2017). Women Entrepreneurship in India. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.31142/ijtsrd2449

Chan, P. Y. P., & Mills, A. M. (2002). Motivators and Inhibitors of e-Commerce Technology Adoption: Online Stock Trading by Small Brokerage Firms in New Zealand. Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228053.2002.10856003

Dutta, M. (1999). Gender equality in families: Bengali middle‐class employed women in India. Contemporary South Asia. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584939908719862

Ejiaku, S. A. (2014). Technology Adoption: Issues and Challenges in Information Technology Adoption in Emerging Economies. Journal of International Technology and Information Management. https://doi.org/10.58729/1941-6679.1071

El-Namaki, M. (1988). Encouraging entrepreneurs in developing countries. Long Range Planning. https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-6301(88)90014-3

Ensign, P. C., & Woods, A. A. (2016). Challenges in Bootstrapping a Start-Up Venture: Keenga Research Turning the Tables on Venture Capitalists. Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation. https://doi.org/10.7341/20161216

Gaba, V., & Bhattacharya, S. (2012). Aspirations, innovation, and corporate venture capital: A behavioral perspective. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1133

Gide, E., & Sandu, N. (2015). A study of the current situation of adoption of Cloud based services in Indian SMEs. Global Journal of Information Technology. https://doi.org/10.18844/gjit.v0i0.110

Heeks, R. (1992). Constraints on and Support for Industrial Policy Liberalization in India. Development Policy Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7679.1992.tb00002.x

KAUR, I., & SINGH, N. (2013). CHINA, INDIA, AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY FOR INCLUSIVE GROWTH. China Economic Policy Review. https://doi.org/10.1142/s1793969013750010

Kennedy, J., & Drennan, J. (2001). A Review of the Impact of Education and Prior Experience on New Venture Performance. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. https://doi.org/10.5367/000000001101298909

Kung, L., Cegielski, C. G., & Kung, H. (2015). An Integrated Environmental Perspective on Software as a Service Adoption in Manufacturing and Retail Firms. Journal of Information Technology. https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2015.14

Lal, A. (1991). Adoption of low‐cost technology for mass housing‐the Indian experience. Building Research &amp; Information. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613219108727130

Lawton, S. (2010). Connecting with women entrepreneurs: equality or business imperative?. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship. https://doi.org/10.1108/17566261011079260

Matilde Schwalb, M., Grosse, R., & Romero Simpson, E. (1988). Developing Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries — The PEG Programme in Peru. Journal of Management Development. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb051683

Mitteness, C., Sudek, R., & Cardon, M. S. (2012). Angel investor characteristics that determine whether perceived passion leads to higher evaluations of funding potential. Journal of Business Venturing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2011.11.003

Mount, M. P., & Fernandes, K. (2013). Adoption of free and open source software within high-velocity firms. Behaviour &amp; Information Technology. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929x.2011.596995

Narayanan, A. (1998). Book Reviews : J.C. Verma, Venture Capital Financing in India, New Delhi: Response Books, 1997, pp. 374. The Journal of Entrepreneurship. https://doi.org/10.1177/097135579800700209

Rao, S. V. R., & Kumar, L. (2016). Role of Angel Investor in Indian Startup Ecosystem. FIIB Business Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/2455265820160101

Saetre, A. S., & Erikson, T. (2003). Dealcrafting the Right Capital for a Venture: The Case of Deep Sea Fishing Inc. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. https://doi.org/10.5367/000000003101299564

Samuel, J. (2015). Production, Growth and Export Competitiveness of Raw Cotton in India - an Economic Analysis. Agricultural Research &amp; Technology: Open Access Journal. https://doi.org/10.19080/artoaj.2015.01.555551

Sudhakara Reddy, B., & Kumar Ray, B. (2011). Understanding industrial energy use: Physical energy intensity changes in Indian manufacturing sector. Energy Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2011.08.044

Uchikawa, S. (2003). Industrial Policy and Development of Machine Tool Industry in India. The Proceedings of Manufacturing Systems Division Conference. https://doi.org/10.1299/jsmemsd.2003.77

Usui, M. (1974). Technology Aspect of the Policy Framework for Small Scale Industrialisation in Developing Countries. SEDME (Small Enterprises Development, Management &amp; Extension Journal): A worldwide window on MSME Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0970846419740124

Venkatapathy, R. (1991). Cognitive Self Among First Generation Entrepreneurs and Second Generation Entrepreneurs. SEDME (Small Enterprises Development, Management &amp; Extension Journal): A worldwide window on MSME Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0970846419910402

Vijayakumar, V., & Subrahmanya K C, S. K. C. (2011). Stimulation of Entrepreneurship through Venture Capital in India. Indian Journal of Applied Research. https://doi.org/10.15373/2249555x/mar2012/63

Vincent, N., & Kenneth, N. (2014). Constraints to gender equality in Nigeria; the paradox of women against women. International Journal of Academic Research. https://doi.org/10.7813/2075-4124.2014/6-2/b.35

Virtanen, M. (2001). Entrepreneurship and venture capital market in Finland. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijeim.2001.000453

Wang, J., Zhao, J., & Wang, X. (2011). Optimum policy in hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing system. Computers &amp; Industrial Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2010.05.002

Williams, J. R., Harris, R. G., & Cox, D. (1985). Trade, Industrial Policy, and Canadian Manufacturing. Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques. https://doi.org/10.2307/3550720

Wu, C., Zhao, J., Xia, L., & Zhu, Z. (2008). Impact of internal factors on information technology adoption: An empirical investigation of Chinese firms. Tsinghua Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1007-0214(08)70051-8

Yu, X., & Si, S. (2012). Innovation, internationalization and entrepreneurship: A new venture research perspective. Innovation. https://doi.org/10.5172/impp.2012.14.4.524