Cultural Values and Entrepreneurship

Cultural Values and Entrepreneurship aims to broaden and deepen our understanding of which elements of ‘culture’ influence, or are influenced by, entrepreneurial activity. Differences in entrepreneurial activity among countries, and regions within those countries, are persistent and cannot be fully explained by institutional and economic variables. A substantial number of these differences have been attributed to culture, and it is clear that some socio-cultural practices, values and norms are more conducive to driving or inhibiting entrepreneurial intentions and activity. However, we need to dig deeper into ‘how’ and ‘why’ cultural practices, and underlying values and norms, matter in entrepreneurial action, in order to more fully understand the complexities of the processes, without making cross-cultural or cross-national generalisations. Unique cultural, national, and institutional contexts present different practices in terms of opportunities and challenges for driving entrepreneurial action. The contributions in this book consider some of the many different facets of the culture-entrepreneurship relationship, and offer valuable insights to our understanding of the field. This book was originally published as a special issue of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.

Francisco Linan is an Associate Professor at the University of Seville, Spain. He has several publications in the areas of entrepreneurial culture, cognitive entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurship education. He is Head of the Masters in Entrepreneurship Development, and has participated in projects funded by the Spanish national government, EU, and the OECD.

Ghulam Nabi is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He has publications in the areas of entrepreneurial intentions, student-to-entrepreneur transition, graduate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, and entrepreneurial culture. He has been guest editor for Special Issues of several journals, and has led projects funded by the UK NCGE, UFHRD, and IGEN.

Norris Krueger has a wide range of consulting and high tech entrepreneurial experience and is very active in all the major entrepreneurship academic organizations. He sits on the Executive Committee of the Academy of Management’s Entrepreneurship Division. His work has ranged from public policy analysis to cutting-edge research to designing entrepreneurial education and training programs that have won multiple national best practice awards.