Value chain dynamics and variegated institutional environments: Inclusion and upgrading of women-owned bamboo micro-enterprises

This working paper explores how value chain dynamics and variegated institutional environments affect the prospects for inclusion/exclusion and economic upgrading of women-owned micro-enterprises to the Indian bamboo value chain. The paper combines insights from the literatures on value chain analysis and institutional theory to create a novel theoretical framework for answering these questions. It then applies this framework to analysis of the inclusion/exclusion and economic upgrading challenges of micro-enterprises in the bamboo value chains of four Indian states: Assam and Meghalaya in the Northeast, Odisha in the East,
and Madhya Pradesh in the Center. The empirical analysis highlights how the interaction between value chain dynamics and regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutions at different scales (national, state, and local) both enhance and undermine the inclusion/exclusion and economic upgrading of micro-enterprises to the Indian bamboo value chains with subsequent implications for marginalized bamboo producer communities in India. The conclusion highlights the main findings, policy, and research implications of the working paper.