Explaining the do-it-yourself (DIY) retail market in a developing country: preliminary lessons from India

Until now, studies of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) market have been confined to advanced market economies, with developing countries ignored. This article begins to bridge this gap. Analysing a survey of 500 households in India, a developing country characterized by cheap and surplus labour, and a different cultural milieu, this article investigates whether it is possible to distinguish DIY consumers in the same manner as in Western nations as ‘reluctant’ or ‘willing’ DIYers. The analysis finds that in India, DIY consumers can be concurrently both willing DIYers doing so for pleasure (the choice model) or seeking self-identity from the end-product (post-modern theory) and at the same time reluctant DIYers doing so out of economic necessity reasons (economic determinism model) or due to the lack of appropriately skilled labour (a market failure model). Results also reflected cultural connotations to the respondent perceptions. The multiplicity of reasons, in consequence, shows that no one theorisation of DIY consumers' motives is universally relevant but all theories are sometimes valid. As such, a new typology of DIY consumers' motives has been inductively generated which is theoretically integrative. The results conclude on the need to move beyond using one theory and treating the others as rival competing theories, for a comprehensive explanation of DIY.     

Evaluating competing theories of street entrepreneurship: some lessons from a study of street vendors in Bangalore, India

Conventionally, street entrepreneurs were either seen as a residue from a pre-modern era that is gradually disappearing (modernisation theory), or an endeavour into which marginalised populations are driven out of necessity in the absence of alternative ways of securing a livelihood (structuralist theory). In recent years, however, participation in street entrepreneurship has been re-read either as a rational economic choice (neo-liberal theory) or as conducted for cultural reasons (post-modern theory). The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically these competing explanations for participation in street entrepreneurship. To do this, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 871 street entrepreneurs in the Indian city of Bangalore during 2010 concerning their reasons for participation in street entrepreneurship. The finding is that no one explanation suffices. Some 12?% explain their participation in street entrepreneurship as necessity-driven, 15?% as traditional ancestral activity, 56?% as a rational economic choice and 17?% as pursued for social or lifestyle reasons. The outcome is a call to combine these previously rival explanations in order to develop a richer and more nuanced theorisation of the multifarious motives for street entrepreneurship in emerging market economies.     

Patent characteristics and the age-value relationship: study of OceanTomo auctioned US singleton patents for the period 2006–2008

The article characterizes high and low value patents based on the non-linearity of the age-value relationship, as an attempt to provide some statistical understanding on the difference in the value of patent characteristics over time. A set of 138 US singleton patents, mainly from the computers and communication field, successfully auctioned by an US auction firm called OceanTomo during 2006–2008 forms the data. Analysis shows evidence of non-linearity in the patent age-value relationship and the sensitivity of patent characteristics to temporal dimension in explaining value of patented knowledge. The U-shaped temporal value of knowledge, identifying older patented knowledge as more valuable, thus, finds support. Furthermore, patents sold in their first half exhibit more lag, less patent scope and less forward citations. Patents sold by firms dominate the younger patent, while the older patent cohort finds more patents sold by individuals. These and other results are discussed for their significance for patent sale. We acknowledge the limitations of a small sample size. Nevertheless, the article provides statistical understanding on the potential characteristics of high and low value patents, explored through the non-linear age value dynamics.