Innovation network for entrepreneurship development in rural Indian context : exploratory factor analysis

Innovation has been considered as one of the key drivers of economic development for any nation. In the rural context, the innovation concept is applied with the intention to determine new ways to solve traditional and emerging problems that the rural people face. The innovation network concept has in the rural context become extremely important because it assists to complement scarce resources and create new opportunities for rural development base by establishing a relationship between rural actors with other actors. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to identify variables of innovation network and to conceptualize innovation network in the rural context. The study has been executed through a field survey of the rural entrepreneurs, through interviews and closed ended questionnaires in rural regions of Gujarat in India. This paper has used exploratory factor analysis in order to investigate factors that might explain the underlying belief of rural entrepreneurs about innovation networks. The paper finds out three factors, namely: (a) innovation network with a private organization, (b) innovation network with NGOs, and (c) innovation network with public organizations. The finding of this study revealed that production enhancement, information accessibility, skill development and entrepreneurial opportunities are considered the most important criteria for conceptualization of innovation network in the rural context. This study allows for implications to be made for rural entrepreneurship development and policy formation. In future research there remains the scope to incorporate larger sample data, greater number of variables of innovation network and conduct the study in other countries.