Entrepreneurship And Culture: The Link Between Culture And Entrepreneurship

Authors maintain that entrepreneurship and culture are closely related (Erdem, 2001). Different cultures have different attitudes towards business formation (Shapero & Sokol, 1982). However, entrepreneurship appears to thrive better within certain cultures than others (Landes, 1953; Lee & Peterson, 2000), causing the levels of entrepreneurship to vary across countries. Extant research has established that the level and type of entrepreneurship in a society or country is as a result of the cultural structure of that country (Begley & Tan, 2001). The link between culture and entrepreneurship stems way back to Mark Weber’s (1930) work on the protestant work ethic. Over the years, researchers now rely on national culture to help explain the reasons

The establishment of new businesses occur as a context-dependent process (Porfírio, 2016). Landes (1953) posits to a large extent, culture determines the supply of entrepreneurship within society. He argued that the poor economic performance of France in the nineteenth century could be explained by the conservativeness and timidity of French entrepreneurs which resulted from their culture. The French entrepreneurs considered business as an integral part of family status rather than as an end in itself (Landes, 1949). The cultural values of a society indicate the extent to which that society considers entrepreneurial behaviours, which include risk taking and independent thinking. Cultures that value and reward risk taking, independent thinking, etc, are likely to groom more entrepreneurs. On the other hand, cultures that promote conformity, group interests, and control over the future are likely to have fewer numbers of entrepreneurs (Herbig,1994; Herbig & Miller, 1992; Hofstede, 1980). Wallace (1970) found that culture influences the level of tolerance of new ideas and inquisitiveness in a

For example, Bates (1995) advocated that the different types and levels of entrepreneurial opportunities and resources across cultures is due to the differences in cultural values. Also, Hofstede (1980) pointed out that greater opportunities for entrepreneurship typically exist in long-term oriented cultures such as China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Likewise, Busenitz & Lau (1996) suggested that entrepreneurship flourishes in cultures where less value is placed on power distance. Sawyer (1954) puts it that the relatively higher encouragement for entrepreneurship in the United States of America is as a result of the perseverance of Puritan values and the frontier spirit in the American society. Also, there have been arguments that the noteworthy modernization of Meiji Japan in the late nineteenth century could be attributed to entrepreneurs who were “community-cantered” and placed national development over personal interest (Hirschmeier, 1964; Ranis,