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Assam, located in the north-eastern region of India, depicts a paradoxical situation of being rich in resources and yet lagging behind the rest of the country in terms of industrial development. One cause attributing to this situation is the inadequate availability of motivated entrepreneurs in the state. So, if the state is to witness industrial growth, there is a direct need for developing entrepreneurship. For this, it is essential to have a good understanding of the factors that influence entrepreneurial emergence in such a region. This work is an attempt in that direction. Adopting a holistic approach, this work analyzes the economic and non-economic factors influencing entrepreneurship to find out which of these have a predominant influence on the existing level of entrepreneurship development in the state using both primary and secondary data. The work concludes that both economic and non-economic factors are important in explaining entrepreneurship development in Assam, but non-economic factors are found to have an over-bearing influence on entrepreneurial success in the state.

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Nivedita Goswami is a lecturer in the Department of Economics, B.Borooah College, Guwahati, Assam. Having completed her post graduation in Economics from Gauhati University, she obtained her M.Phil degree from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai in 1999 and her Ph.D degree from Gauhati University in 2007.

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