Start-up stories of techno-entrepreneurial engineers in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Entrepreneurial engineers can be considered as valuable human resources which contribute immensely to the economic growth and development of any country. Hence, wider attention has been given to promote entrepreneurship among professional engineers in many countries. In general, billion-dollar technology-related businesses have been found and managed by innovative engineers in the international context. Although not in the billion-dollar capacity, there are still a lot of successful techno-entrepreneurial engineers in Sri Lanka whose start-up stories have not yet been revealed to the general public in the form of an academic study. This research paper investigates the motivation and challenges faced by such engineers in Sri Lankan context during the start-up phase of their firms as a part of an ongoing study based on the grounded theory approach. Data were collected by conducting face to face interviews with purposively selected eight techno-entrepreneurial engineers. Verbatim transcriptions of the audio records of the interviews were analyzed by following techniques of the grounded theory approach. It reveals that lack of experience, finance, and social issues were the major challenges they faced during the start-up stages. The findings of this study can be used at the policy level to create a favourable eco-environment for budding entrepreneurial engineers to successfully exploit their innovative ideas and products into businesses in the Sri Lankan context.