Policy for Performance: Towards Integrating Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Approach on Co-operative Framework—The Case of Coir Co-operatives in Alappy

Industrial clustering and co-operativization are two globally acknowledged policy mechanisms for regional industrial development. Alappy district of Kerala is one of the major hubs of coir industry in India and it occupies a substantial place in the coir map of the world. Alappy possesses almost all the physical attributes of a typical industrial cluster with a critical mass of related units and ancillaries enjoying spatial agglomeration and sharing common facilities. The coir industry of Alappy is largely organized on ‘workers’ co-operative’ basis. Despite the incidence of these supportive policy measures and favourable environmental conditions, the industry is on the verge of decline. The findings of the current study show that though Alappy possesses a fare score in the assessment of its cluster attributes, most of the firms are consistently reporting losses and their number is increasing year by year. A similar trend is seen in the case of firm survival and new firm creation. Among the output indicators, employment generation is the only aspect which is consistently showing positive results. Drawing on personal interviews with relevant stakeholders such as managers/secretaries of co-operative societies and government officials and a critical analysis of various policy documents, this article attempts to explore why the globally acclaimed policy mechanisms such as industrial clustering and co-operativization fail to bring the fruits of competitiveness and innovation to the coir industry in Alappy. The study also proposes an entrepreneurial ecosystem approach as a mechanism to revive this floundering industry and discusses its adaptability and complementarity with the co-operative framework prevailing in the industry.