Journal of Business and Technical Communication Oct 2025 Open Access

“Proud to Be the Enabler”: Closed System Ideology in the Origin Stories of Indian Technology Start-Ups

Krishna Akhil Kumar Adavi The University of Texas at Austin ; E. Johanna Hartelius The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

Indian technology start-ups have flourished in the past decade in sectors such as ride-hailing, hotel-booking, and at-home personal services, which have been supported by national programs and Silicon Valley ideas of market disruption. Drawing on Miller’s foundational work on “technological consciousness,” this article demonstrates how start-up origin stories construct an ethos that is aligned with nationalist and casteist privilege, which are the closed system's principal values. Expanding northern hemispheric exclusionism, the article contributes to the interdisciplinary study of entrepreneurial, professional, and technical communication with a critical view of how globalized discourses legitimize individual entrepreneurship by strengthening and obscuring the ideological tension between casteism and meritocracy.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2025-10-01
DOI
10.1177/10506519251348451
Open Access
OA PDF Hybrid
Topics
technical communication argument

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

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