IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecanth/v7y2020i2p190-202.html

Investment, value, and the making of entrepreneurship in India

Author

Listed:
  • Ipshita Ghosh

Abstract

In recent years, a new class of entrepreneurs and investors has emerged in India. In this article, based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with start‐ups in Delhi, I examine how entrepreneurs are valued by investors and the sociocultural implications of this process. I make two arguments. First, the criteria used to judge creditworthiness, including personal networks, technological capability, and ability to undertake speculative risk, serve as signals of an entrepreneur's value to prospective investors. Second, as investors acknowledge, the investment is made in the specific personhood of the entrepreneur rather than the business plan. Therefore the process of seeking investment capital, far from being simply a means of scaling one's business, is an act of cultural construction. The entrepreneur's value as wealth‐in‐people is not judged objectively; rather, it is created through the process of pitching and securing investment commitments. One of the contributions of this research is to center the real and perceived relationship between entrepreneurs and investors in studying start‐up spaces in India. Examining this relationship reveals the forms of economic, sociocultural, and moral value that are interwoven with each other. The multiple, often contradictory meanings attached to entrepreneurship are negotiated through the prism of investment, which emerges as a dynamic site for constructing and contesting entrepreneurial identities.

Suggested Citation

  • Ipshita Ghosh, 2020. "Investment, value, and the making of entrepreneurship in India," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 190-202, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:7:y:2020:i:2:p:190-202
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12179
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12179
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sea2.12179?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Horacio Ortiz, 2014. "The Limits of Financial Imagination: Free Investors, Efficient Markets, and Crisis," Post-Print hal-00966544, HAL.
    2. Zaloom, Caitlin, 2006. "Out of the Pits," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226978130, Febrero.
    3. Horacio Ortiz, 2013. "Financial value: economic, moral, political, global," Post-Print hal-00869852, HAL.
    4. Andrew L. Ofstehage, 2018. "Financialization of work, value, and social organization among transnational soy farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 274-285, June.
    5. Hannah Jane Marshall, 2018. "“Once you support, you are supported†: Entrepreneurship and reintegration among ex†prisoners in Gulu, northern Uganda," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 71-82, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Horacio Ortiz, 2022. "Political Imaginaries of the Weighted Average Cost of Capital: A Conceptual Analysis," Post-Print halshs-03513082, HAL.
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4ff88coju39nk8b11b5ghfc1ff is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Tariq Rahman, 2022. "Landscapes of rizq: Mediating worldly and otherworldly in Lahore's speculative real estate market," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 297-308, June.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/36r82bk74h9hiai5p7mros4j61 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sean Field, 2022. "Risk and responsibility: Private equity financiers and the US shale revolution," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 47-59, January.
    6. Olivier Godechot, 2019. "Conclusion: What finance manufactures," Post-Print hal-03393812, HAL.
    7. Aaron Z. Pitluck & Fabio Mattioli & Daniel Souleles, 2018. "Finance beyond function: Three causal explanations for financialization," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 157-171, June.
    8. Olivier Godechot, 2016. "Back in the bazaar: taking Pierre Bourdieu to a trading room," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 410-429, August.
    9. Charron Jacques-Olivier, 2017. "Inefficient Debate. The EMH, the “Remarkable Error” and a Question of Point of View," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 7(3), pages 1-24, December.
    10. Anna Maaranen & Janne Tienari, 2020. "Social media and hyper‐masculine work cultures," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1127-1144, November.
    11. Roscoe, Philip & Howorth, Carole, 2009. "Identification through technical analysis: A study of charting and UK non-professional investors," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 206-221, February.
    12. Colin Jerolmack & Alexandra K. Murphy, 2019. "The Ethical Dilemmas and Social Scientific Trade-offs of Masking in Ethnography," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 48(4), pages 801-827, November.
    13. Desiree Fields, 2022. "Automated landlord: Digital technologies and post-crisis financial accumulation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(1), pages 160-181, February.
    14. Matthew Zook & Michael H Grote, 2017. "The microgeographies of global finance: High-frequency trading and the construction of information inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 121-140, January.
    15. Williams, James W., 2013. "Regulatory technologies, risky subjects, and financial boundaries: Governing ‘fraud’ in the financial markets," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 544-558.
    16. Horacio Ortiz, 2012. "Anthropology – of the Financial Crisis," Chapters, in: James G. Carrier (ed.), A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, Second Edition, chapter 35, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Martha Poon, 2009. "From New Deal institutions to capital markets: commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance," Working Papers halshs-00359712, HAL.
    18. Walter, Lars & Styhre, Alexander, 2020. "Nursing, bedside care, and the organization of expert knowledge: Professional work as agencement," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3).
    19. Kalman Applbaum, 2012. "Markets: Places, Principles and Integrations," Chapters, in: James G. Carrier (ed.), A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, Second Edition, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Martha Poon, 2009. "From New Deal institutions to capital markets: commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance," Post-Print halshs-00359712, HAL.
    21. Carlo Massironi & Marco Guicciardi, 2011. "Investment decision making from a constructivist perspective," Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 3(3), pages 158-176, October.
    22. Lena Rethel, 2018. "Capital market development in Southeast Asia: From speculative crisis to spectacles of financialization," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 185-197, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:7:y:2020:i:2:p:190-202. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2330-4847 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.