Title: The impact of culture on the creation of enterprises

Authors: Mai Thi Thanh Thai; Nguyen Hoang Anh

Addresses: Department of International Business, HEC Montréal 3000, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal (Québec), H3T 2A7, Canada ' Asia Pacific Studies Center, Foreign Trade University, 91 Chua Lang Street, Dongda, Hanoi 117217, Vietnam

Abstract: Our paper examines how the cultural background of the entrepreneurs affects the way they create their enterprises and how to discover in what ways different business environments dissipate the cultural influence of the home country (or not). By analysing entrepreneurs from the same culture group but operating in two different countries, we found that of the five stages of enterprise creation (namely identification of business opportunity, business concept definition, resource mobilisation, enterprise formation, and launch of business) the entrepreneurs with similar profiles have very similar approaches for business opportunity identification and resource mobilisation regardless of which country they are in. When the entrepreneurs lack knowledge and experience, they tend to copy other businesses. In this situation, their cultural background does not influence their enterprise formation and business concept definition. We also found some evidence of cultural influence on the launch of business.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; new venture creation; culture; business context; Vietnam; Canada; cultural background; entrepreneurial background; business opportunity identification; resource mobilisation; enterprise formation; business concept definition; cultural influence.

DOI: 10.1504/JIBED.2016.074020

Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 2016 Vol.9 No.1, pp.1 - 22

Published online: 03 Jan 2016 *

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