Indian Entrepreneurship through a Historical Lens: A Dialogue with Dwijendra Tripathi

Abstract

History arguably is most suited to inform entrepreneurship and its varied manifestations. It is equally well placed to address entrepreneurship’s primary challenge—longitudinal work in context. Despite repeated calls for this, it has remained a plea. Extant literature review provided five themes, which researchers can use to begin to look at entrepreneurship through a historical lens. These are: business history and entrepreneurship, context and entrepreneurship, caste and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship in emerging economies and entrepreneurship research using historical methods. A dialogue with India’s pre-eminent business historian Dwijendra Tripathi adds perspective to the considerable potential these themes present for entrepreneurship research through a historical lens. Indian entrepreneurship provides context to this perspective and reinforces this need. Furthermore, the five themes provide research gateways for scholars in both business history and entrepreneurship.