South Asian Journal of Social Studies and Economics

Despite being a major contribution to the country's overall lock manufacture, the Aligarh lock industry is on the verge of shutting down. The study attempts to provide a hierarchical structure that depicts linkages between the Aligarh lock industry's different issues in its growth and development. The research highlights the industry's biggest growth roadblocks in great detail. A structured literature search has been done focused on the Aligarh lock industry. Following, a content analysis of the interview transcripts gathered from the Aligarh lock industry's traders, manufacturers, and artisans was conducted to identify various issues. Finally, a computer-assisted Interpretive Structural Model has been developed based on 21 major growth issues that plague the Aligarh lock industry. The study finds that the industry does not generally plan or innovate. The ISM model depicts hierarchical relationships between elements following six levels of challenges. At the bottom of the hierarchy, widespread poverty, inefficient government programmes, a lack of education, and poor capital investments drive other growth obstacles. The research provides a methodical approach to problem-solving and focuses on the most important elements for recovering sick units in the unorganized sector. By offering a systematic depiction of the challenges, this study improves comprehension of the challenges that small and medium businesses experience in implementing suitable growth strategies. The purpose of the current study was to examine the lock industry in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and determine the current state of affairs of the industry. The study is limited in its ability to generalize to other sectors, as it only focused on the case of Aligarh’s lock industry. Hence, the findings of this study may not be good to be generalized for other industries.