Technological capabilities in the Indian Ayurveda medicine industry: Lessons for ‘industrialisation’ of alternative medicine in the post-WTO regime

Abha Arya and Saradindu Bhaduri

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2018, vol. 10, issue 3, 287-298

Abstract: This paper makes an attempt to explore technological change as well as the motivations and pattern of technological capabilities in the Indian Ayurveda medicine industry. It seeks to investigate the different kinds of learning and technological innovations taking place in the post-WTO regime in the industry to enable it to cater for the global market. The paper discusses assimilative capabilities, collaborative learning and path-dependence of the Ayurveda industry with the help of primary data collected from firms, research institutes, and individual scientists. Broadly, we find the pattern of technological capability acquisition and learning to vary with firm’s size, ownership pattern, educational background of owners and firm age. We find that the categories of technological capabilities are not watertight in nature, and a firm can fall in more than one category at times. Our findings also suggest that changing formulation technologies poses a new challenge for the delivery mechanism of Ayurveda drugs, calling for a greater interdependence between medical practice and production systems. It observes the formation of region specific clusters driving collaborative learning in small and medium-sized enterprises.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1080/20421338.2018.1455314

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