Entrepreneurship in Asia may be the least understood of today’s most exciting economic phenomena.  Even in developed western economies, researchers and analysts are only now beginning to understand the economic contribution of the enterprising class of innovators, business owners, and risk-takers we call “entrepreneurs.”  Entrepreneurship in Asia is even less well understood, despite its popularity.

India is increasingly important as a laboratory of bottom-up, gritty, individualistic entrepreneurship, different than, say, the Chinese model.  Harvard University’s Tarun Khanna, an expert on Chinese and Indian entrepreneurship, has in his work contrasted China’s government-driven, top-down style of enterprise with India’s “interesting, vibrant way of doing...