IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/entthe/v31y2007i6p953-963.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Building a Better Rat Trap: Technological Innovation, Human Capital, and the Irula

Author

Listed:
  • Siri Terjesen

Abstract

This case follows Sethu Sethunarayanan, Director of the nonprofit Center for Development of Disadvantaged People, which is dedicated to the improvement of the Irula tribe in rural villages of southeast India. The Irulas specialize in catching rats, an activity which provides the bulk of their income and food. Following a routine visit to a local village, Sethu recognized an opportunity for a “better rat trap†to aid the Irula rat catchers. With feedback from rat catchers, Sethu developed an innovative new trap. His innovation won the prestigious Global Development Marketplace award from the World Bank which provided the funding necessary to commercialize the new technology. The venture's implementation involved site visits to identify beneficiaries, health checks and treatment, preparatory workshops, factory establishment, factory training, production, women's micro–credit collectives, distribution, and project evaluation. The case focuses on the relationship between human capital and technological entrepreneurship, considering the knowledge and skills required to commercialize technology for the rural poor and the positive impact on this greatly disadvantaged population.

Suggested Citation

  • Siri Terjesen, 2007. "Building a Better Rat Trap: Technological Innovation, Human Capital, and the Irula," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 31(6), pages 953-963, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:31:y:2007:i:6:p:953-963
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6520.2007.00204.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2007.00204.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2007.00204.x?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S, 1993. "Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 385-409, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Koehne, Florian & Woodward, Richard & Honig, Benson, 2022. "The potentials and perils of prosocial power: Transnational social entrepreneurship dynamics in vulnerable places," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(4).

    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. Cornelia Serena, PASCA, 2016. "The Human Capital - A Long Term Investment," Contemporary Economy Journal, Constantin Brancoveanu University, vol. 1(4), pages 51-62.
    2. Douglas Cumming & Lars Hornuf & Moein Karami & Denis Schweizer, 2023. "Disentangling Crowdfunding from Fraudfunding," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 1103-1128, February.
    3. Paul Schumann & Lars Kuchinke, 2020. "Do(n’t) Worry, It’s Temporary: The Effects of Fixed-Term Employment on Affective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(7), pages 2557-2582, October.
    4. Marjit, Sugata & Mukherjee, Vivekananda & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2000. "Harassment, corruption and tax policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 75-94, March.
    5. Cheal, David & Kampen, Karen, 1997. "Complementarity in the labor supply of husbands and wives," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 495-512.
    6. Jin, Justin & Nainar, Khalid & Sun, Chenwei, 2022. "Bank non-performing loans, loan charge-offs, and crime incidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    7. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1346-1434, December.
    8. Enrique Leonardo Kato Vidal, 2015. "Violence in Mexico: An economic rationale of crime and its impacts," EconoQuantum, Revista de Economia y Finanzas, Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas, Departamento de Metodos Cuantitativos y Maestria en Economia., vol. 12(2), pages 93-108, Julio-Dic.
    9. Will, Matthias Georg & Hielscher, Stefan, 2013. "How do companies invest in corporate social responsibility? An ordonomic contribution for empirical CSR research," Discussion Papers 2013-3, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    10. Guido Tabellini, 2007. "The Scope of Cooperation: Norms and Incentives," Levine's Working Paper Archive 321307000000000866, David K. Levine.
    11. Ferry Prasetyia, 2019. "The role of local government policy on secondary school enrolment decision in Indonesia," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 9(2), pages 139-172, June.
    12. W. Michael Hanemann, 1994. "Valuing the Environment through Contingent Valuation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 19-43, Fall.
    13. Carlos Brambila-Paz, 2017. "Households, Families and Prospective Economic Mobility in Mexico," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 582-595, December.
    14. Bouzguenda, Karima, 2018. "Emotional intelligence and financial decision making: Are we talking about a paradigmatic shift or a change in practices?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 273-284.
    15. Funk, Matt, 2008. "On the Problem of Sustainable Economic Development: A Theoretical Solution to this Prisoner's Dilemma," MPRA Paper 19025, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Jun 2008.
    16. Ji, Sisi & Zhu, Zheyi, 2022. "Does higher education matter for health?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2022/4, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    17. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Karen A. Kopecky, 2019. "The Wife's Protector: A Quantitative Theory Linking Contraceptive Technology with the Decline in Marriage," Working Papers wp2019_1912, CEMFI.
    18. Martin J. Conyon & Lerong He, 2016. "Executive Compensation and Corporate Fraud in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 669-691, April.
    19. Kornai, János, 2006. "A társadalomtudományok elkülönüléséről és együttműködéséről [Differentiation and cooperation in the social sciences]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 949-960.
    20. Kantorowicz-Reznichenko Elena, 2015. "Day-Fines: Should the Rich Pay More?," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 481-501, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • N35 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Asia including Middle East

    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:sae:entthe:v:31:y:2007:i:6:p:953-963. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.