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The purpose of this paper is to examine various technological innovation influencers (TIIs) in small manufacturing firms. It introduces a study framework of technological innovation and evaluates the relevance of four TIIs to building and sustaining the competitiveness of Indian firms.

This research is based on an in-depth survey of 135 firms located in India’s Northern region. Multiple regression analysis was employed to examine the correlation between TIIs and manufacturing firm performance (MFP) for these firms.

The findings verify that entrepreneurial capability, technology infrastructure capability and government initiatives are the most important TIIs for small firms. The findings are also validated by using statistical t-test and canonical correlation analysis.

This study uses a single informant as the source of information on each firm. The study is limited to small-scale firms in the Northern region of India. Also, the study has been conducted excluding the service sector.

Recent studies have advocated various TIIs and discussed their impact on MFP. This paper examines the determinants of technological innovation in small manufacturing firms. It introduces a study framework of technological innovation and examines the relevance of four TIIs to building and sustaining the competitiveness of Indian firms.

Technology and knowledge have become the buzzwords of the new millennium. Technological changes and demanding customers are creating a more knowledge intensive, turbulent, complex and uncertain environment. Organizations, which are able to continually build faster and cheaper new strategic assets than their competitors, create long-term competitive advantages. Thus, the growth of companies is directly associated with innovativeness and technological development, especially for small organizations that are more vulnerable to dynamic changes in market place. Organizations need a strategic framework that can help them to achieve the goal of technology development and competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to develop such strategic framework for small organizations for their technology development and, hence, survival in marketplace.

Options field methodology, options profile methodology, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy set theory are utilized to generate various options and profiles to propose a conceptual framework for technology development.

The results from the study showed that “mixed approach,” “strategic simulation approach” and the “regulatory environment approach,” in this order, emerged as the top three important options for the strategic technological development of small manufacturing enterprises.

This result can provide an original and more accurate implementation pathway toward technological innovative development in emerging economies. The proposed framework can provide valuable guidelines and recommendations to practicing managers and analysts for policy development to promote innovative and technological developments.

In this paper, I review the concept of “institutional voids” that provides a way to understand the structure of emerging markets. These voids impede would-be buyers from getting together with would-be sellers, and hence compromise the functioning of markets. Entrepreneurs must respond to these voids. Their endeavors, however, are also the means through which the voids are progressively removed. I review my work on the contours of such entrepreneurship in many emerging markets, with the greatest research emphasis on China and India. I conclude with a focus on attempts to circumvent a particularly insidious class of institutional voids, those that prevent the marginalized two-thirds of the world’s population from participating in the economic mainstream. Cumulatively, my work calls for our profession to think more creatively and eclectically about our research and teaching in a way that displays greater contextual intelligence toward ubiquitous and socially costly voids.