Books

This edited volume, emerging from a conference on the same theme at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013, examines the nature and character of Indian innovation. The narrative unfolding through the chapters here goes to demonstrate that far from being a monolith, Indian innovation is a vibrant canvas where brush-strokes from all kinds of artists – big businesses, startups, not-for-profits, and State actors – leave distinct impressions. The incentives to innovate are therefore highly contextual in India, with frameworks developed in the Western context such as Schumpeterian innovation doing disservice to the multifarious canvas. This then raises the challenge of building up an innovation ecosystem as the widely divergent interests of each of these actors often collide and conflict, complicating the policy and decisional matrix. This volume explores pathways to inductively construct the idea of Indian innovation, frame consistent policies, resolve stakeholder conflicts, and make her a pioneer in the age of innovation.