Entrepreneurship and National Culture

Abstract

The direct relationship between national cultural practice and entrepreneurship activities is analyzed in this chapter, based on the analysis of 44 countries. Datasets from 2012 and 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report are used to characterize three types of entrepreneurship: early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA); necessity-driven entrepreneurship (NDE) and opportunity-driven (ODE) entrepreneurship. Data sets on national cultural values are used to analyze five dimensions of Hofstede's work on cultural values (power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, long/short term orientation, and uncertainty avoidance). For that, the authors use the Values Survey Module 2013, which has been adapted from Hofstede's previous work from 2010 and 2008. The main conclusion is that the three types of entrepreneurship analyzed in this chapter are differently explained by the cultural and expanded models. If the country of origin and the type of economy are useful to explain TEA, they are of no added value to explain necessity-driven or opportunity-driven entrepreneurship.