Entrepreneurship in India's handicraft industry with the support of digital technology and innovation during natural calamities

Abstract

This research aimed to identify the characteristics that either foster or stifle digital innovation and entrepreneurship amongst small businesses operating in the Handicraft industry during times of economic downturn. In the eyes of young Indian craft entrepreneurs, digital technology is essential for surviving the crisis and would help, for the most part, the artisanal and handmade goods market and the entrepreneurial spirit. Fifty owners of online handicraft businesses, all of whom held unique craft skills, were interviewed using a qualitative technique, and the researcher then utilized inductive (qualitative) content analysis to draw out common threads from the transcripts. The findings showed that the Pandemic's internal and external factors encourage the movement of handicraft businesses to digital platforms, fostering entrepreneurship and digital innovation. The respondents identified several obstacles, including a lack of available high-quality digital infrastructures, the spread of pandemics, market worries over digital platforms, and the lack of knowledge and IT skills required to run an online business. The article's findings contribute to the growing body of digital information on novel approaches to entrepreneurship and suggest avenues for carrying out quantitative research toward the end of creating aid programmes for proprietors of handmade goods enterprises during economic downturns. This could serve as a standard against which new policies and tactics for reviving the economy and expanding the handmade goods industry through technological and entrepreneurial ingenuity can be measured.