Enhancing Grassroots Entrepreneurship Development through Market Orientation

Authors

  • Sonal Hukampal Singh Mahindra University
  • Birud Sindhav University of Nebraska at Omaha
  • Bhaskar Bhowmick Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Keywords:

Grassroots Innovation,, Customer Orientation,, Competitive Orientation,, Entrepreneurship Development,, India

Abstract

Grassroots innovation (GRI) is often cited as a key to entrepreneurship development; however, the factors of influence for prompting entrepreneurial actions at the grassroots level are often unclear. As the key challenges of grassroots innovators are limited understanding and accessibility of market information, market orientation plays a significant role by helping grassroots innovators relation to sources of important information and opportunities. In the grassroots context, market orientation serves to promote entrepreneurial activity by bridging the market information gap effectively and ensuring involvement from various communities in responding to market needs and demand.  This study analyzes the role of market orientation on the connection between GRI and entrepreneurial orientation. It reveals that market orientation helps improve economic benefits from entrepreneurial activities.

Author Biographies

Birud Sindhav, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Dr. Sindhav has a PhD (Business Administration, Marketing focus) from the University of Oklahoma, Norman. Professor Sindhav teaches Doing Business in China in the MBA program, and Principles of Marketing (both traditional and online) and Marketing Research in the undergraduate program. He has also taught in Finland, Austria, Egypt, and India. He is a recipient of the UNO Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award and also the M&E Department's Distinguished Professor Awards.Professor Sindhav's research interests focus on areas of b-to-b relationships, organizational justice, green advertising, social media, grassroots entrepreneurship in emerging economies, and sales function in startups. His work has been published in the Journal of Retailing, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Journal of Marketing Channels and other outlets. He is on the editorial review boards of several journals. He is a Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Collaboration Science at UNO.

Bhaskar Bhowmick, Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Dr. Bhaskar Bhowmick is presently working as associate professor at IIT, Kharagpur, India. He completed his Ph. D. from IIM, Ahmedabad with specialization in Business Policy. He has thirteen years of industry experience in sales and marketing. His research interests include Firm environment and Leadership; & Technology for Sustainable Development. His primary focus of research is on understanding and disintegrating environmental developments and identifying Leadership Capability, & Learning and un-learning for technology implications for sustainable development.

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Published

2026-09-11

Issue

Vol. 21 No. 1 (2026): Proceedings of The 21st European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Section

Academic Papers

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Sonal Hukampal Singh, Birud Sindhav, Bhaskar Bhowmick

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.