Exploring the potential impact of colonialism on national patterns of entrepreneurial networking

Abstract

This study emphasizes the concept of variform universality and considers whether colonialism may be one of the cultural drivers of such divergence. We use a well-established methodology to explore the personal entrepreneurial networks of Cypriots with those of their Greek and English counterparts. We suggest that entrepreneurial networking exhibits variform universality, whereby patterns evident across nations are moderated by culture. We conclude by relating these tentative findings to other work suggesting that power-related phenomena may be important in shaping variform universality in entrepreneurial networks. We recommend post-colonial theory as a promising path to explore these in-between social spaces where the entrepreneurship of the dominated is enacted.