Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the elements of the Marwari business community’s sociocultural context, which influence entrepreneurial behaviour. The entrepreneurial behaviour of the Marwari community is interrogated in the context of the wider indigenous entrepreneurship literature.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a qualitative approach in exploring the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and effectual entrepreneurial behaviour of a sample of Marwari entrepreneurs. An exploratory, qualitative content analysis method was adopted to highlight the emerging insights into traditional entrepreneurship.

Findings

The study identifies unique, traditional Marwari behavioural constructs such as Sakh and Samai and the role it plays in trust-based business relationships. Overall, the study finds that although the Marwari practices and ecosystem enable a deep understanding of the entrepreneurial and business process, they do not facilitate creative innovation or entrepreneurial experimentation as seen within modern start-up incubation ecosystems.

Research limitations/implications

The study took a conscious decision to restrict further data collection upon saturation and used a purposeful sampling technique to increase the richness of this study rather than enlarge the sample and dilute the quality of the data.

Practical implications

The study identifies nuances of Marwari’s traditional practices that have come to determine their effectual tendencies that support business growth and sustainability. The study, however, finds that the restrictiveness of the Marwari ecosystem practices on fluency of doing business rather than creative innovation and thought experimentation risks the longevity of the traditional ecosystem advantage enjoyed by the Marwaris for centuries.

Social implications

The study broadens the understanding of the uniqueness of traditional business communities, which are comparatively marginalized in mainstream entrepreneurship research. Via this study, it is seen that the Marwari form of entrepreneurship is collectivist rather than individualist in nature, which differentiates them from their Western counterparts. This helps to explain why entrepreneurs tend to behave differently; hence, achieving a universal definition of entrepreneurship remains a challenge.

Originality/value

While the relationship between the sociocultural aspects of communities and their entrepreneurial behaviour is known, the role of the constituent elements of the Marwari sociocultural context and influence on business is unclear. This study takes the lead in identifying such elements of the Marwari sociocultural construct and argues how these elements can play a role in the Marwaris demonstrating tendencies of effectual behaviour.

中文翻译：

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印度马尔瓦里商业界的社会文化元素

目的

本研究的目的是探讨影响创业行为的 Marwari 商业社区的社会文化背景要素。马尔瓦里社区的创业行为在更广泛的土著创业文献的背景下受到质疑。

设计/方法论/途径

该研究采用定性方法探索马尔瓦里企业家样本的思想、感受、信念和有效的创业行为。采用探索性、定性内容分析方法来强调对传统创业的新兴见解。

发现

该研究确定了独特的传统 Marwari 行为结构，例如 Sakh 和 Samai，及其在基于信任的商业关系中发挥的作用。总体而言，研究发现，尽管 Marwari 实践和生态系统能够深入了解创业和商业流程，但它们并不能促进现代初创企业孵化生态系统中的创造性创新或创业实验。

研究局限性/影响

该研究有意识地决定在饱和时限制进一步的数据收集，并使用有目的的抽样技术来增加本研究的丰富性，而不是扩大样本并稀释数据质量。

实际影响

该研究确定了 Marwari 传统做法的细微差别，这些细微差别决定了其支持业务增长和可持续性的有效趋势。然而，该研究发现，马尔瓦里生态系统实践对做生意的流畅性而不是创造性创新和思想实验的限制，有可能损害马尔瓦里人几个世纪以来享有的传统生态系统优势的长久性。

社会影响

该研究拓宽了对传统商业社区独特性的理解，传统商业社区在主流创业研究中相对边缘化。通过这项研究可以看出，马尔瓦里人的创业形式本质上是集体主义而非个人主义，这使他们与西方同行有所不同。这有助于解释为什么企业家往往表现得不同。因此，实现创业精神的普遍定义仍然是一个挑战。

原创性/价值

虽然社区的社会文化方面与其创业行为之间的关系是已知的，但马尔瓦里社会文化背景的组成要素的作用以及对商业的影响尚不清楚。这项研究率先识别了马尔瓦里人社会文化结构的这些要素，并论证了这些要素如何在马尔瓦里人表现出有效行为倾向中发挥作用。