Today, emerging economies are the world’s growth engines. Within this context, India is playing an increasingly significant role as a large market, as a provider of increasingly higher-end services and products, and as a source of novel and innovative business models aimed at addressing some of the world’s most pressing problems. All this, while facing resource constraints and a fractured institutional environment that are both very different from that in the West. There is, thus, much to learn by sharing experiences related to innovative strategies from both India and other emerging economies. The SMS India conference in December 2013 in Mohali aims to build on the premise that emerging economies, like India, offer rich opportunities for innovative theoretical and empirical innovations to strategy research. Our goal is to provide a platform for academics and practitioners to share their perspectives in traditional paper presentation sessions, interactive sessions, panels and plenaries - all this in a colorful and temperate north Indian winter!