No abstract

COVID19 pandemic is pushing business organizations to cope in newer, more resilient ways. In this study, in-depth qualitative research was conducted using Weick's sensemaking framework (1995) to give organizational leaders a snapshot of how individuals grappled with sensemaking during this time. The enactment of sensemaking for individuals occurred based on four major COVIDian realities: life during the lockdown, work from home, moments of reflection, and struggles and emotions. The implications of the findings are two folds. First, the dynamic nature of extracted cues coupled with greater technology use increased enactment frequency amongst individuals leading to a collapse in sensemaking. Secondly, we propose that this collapse has a significant impact on human cognition, which will further affect the nature of work as well as the meaning of work in life.

:The present study is based on the primary data collected from 160 lac growers in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh during the year 2012-2013. The study revealed that practices like inoculation method of seed lac in host plants (38.75%) was recorded high level of knowledge, whereas respondents had medium level of knowledge about lac producing trees (81.87%) and low level of knowledge on lac strain (97.50%). In case of practice wise level of adoption, it was found that maximum number of respondents had high extent of adoption in selection of host plants (11.25%), followed by pruning of host plants(91.25%) under medium level of extent of adoption and it was found that cent per cent had low level of adoption regarding adoption of recommended strain. The knowledge and adoption level of lac growers can be increased through conducting training programmes on different aspects of lac production technology like processing, processing instruments, usages of lac in making by products by the concerned agencies and providing the facilities and proper guidance to the lac growers for adoption of recommended lac production technology which will be helpful in providing additional income to the lac growers. Results of the study will be helpful to improve the production scenario of lac which will helpful for farmers to get additional income.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the factors that lead to the failure of startups in India and proposes a ‘Four Dimensional (4D) Strategic Framework’ to drive success. Design/methodology/approach This study is exploratory and uses a narrative analysis methodology to analyse the accounts of key startup stakeholders – founders, investors, former employees and consumers; to identify their failure factors. A conveniently selected sample of 165 startups was studied to understand better the reasons for their failure within a thematic framework developed from David Feinleib’s (2012) handbook “Why Startups Fail”. Findings Results indicate that a dearth of capital or running out of money and inadequate sales and marketing strategy, which leads businesses to fall behind rivals and lose money on each transaction, are the most common factors for startup failure in India. Originality/value “Startups” are substantial for emerging economies like India because they fuel technological innovation and economic progress and provide for the modern workforce’s needs and aspirations. However, they seem to be typically unprofitable, with a modest probability of survival. Subsisting studies mainly focus primarily on success factors and very few on why startups fail, with significant disagreement on an appropriate methodology. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyses failure factors of Indian startups using narrative analysis of its key stakeholders. It aims to aid the conception of profitable entrepreneurship by reducing the failure frequency in the startup and small business ecology.

SUMMARY :This paper aims to examine and study the entrepreneurship skills of the tribal women involved in NTFP collection and marketing in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh. Bastar district is endowed with dense forest covering 75.54% of the total area with abundant resource of economically important non-timber forest products. 80% NTFPs gatherers are women and out of those 55% women belongs to age group of 18-30 years, and 53% of the women were illiterates in the study area. The average labour days involved in the collection was 134.33 per annum per household and 68.23% women were involved in collection followed by men and children at 19.29% and 12.48% respectively. On an average Rs. 20258.69 per household per annum were generated through the selling of NTFPs, which is majorly contributed by women collectors with 65.62 per cent followed by 23.01 and 11.37 per cent by male and children collectors respectively. The labour employment indicated that 80.85 per cent women were involved in processing of NTFPs and only 19.15 per cent men were contributing them. The contribution of women in marketing of NTFPs in contrarily less and they sell only 27.56 per cent and rest 72.44 per cent are sold by men. The profit margin obtained after processing is 53.79% instead of selling unprocessed is only 44.25%. On an average the highest profit margin after reducing the processing cost gained through Kalmegh with 65.40 per cent followed by Cashew nut, Tamarind, Tikhur, Chironjee and Mahua with 51.26, 44.71, 42.23, 32.75, and 29.79 per cent respectively. Although the scenario looks satisfactory but still there is scope because the producer's share in consumer rupee is very less ranging from 53-54 per cent, which may rise upto 85-95%, if proper guidance and training provided to enhance women's marketing skill to grow their cottage industries and at the same time teaching them time-saving and sustainable methods to harvest NTFPs which also may protect the ecosystem.