The Innovation Imperative: Perceptions and Practices of First-Generation Women Entrepreneurs

- If you have your start-up, you need to be innovative. Innovation need not necessarily be only in products but also in the production process, marketing of products or services, or management. In the past few years, India has given a lot of importance to entrepreneurship development; hence, we find that over a period, the number of women entrepreneurs has increased. Some women are first-generation women entrepreneurs who started their businesses from scratch. As they are the New Generation Entrepreneurs, they face many problems at the initial stage of their start-up. Looking at the present competitive market, if these ‘First Generation Women Entrepreneurs’ want to survive, they need to be innovative in their business. In this paper, the researcher has found out that women entrepreneurs lack an understanding of the concept of innovation; they believe that whatever business they are doing is innovative. When the correlation between an innovative idea and business success achieved by first-generation women entrepreneurs was calculated, it was found that there was a correlation between the 'innovative idea' applied and the 'business success', but the relation was very weak. Key Words: Innovation, First Generation Women Entrepreneurs (FGWE), Business Success