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Experimental diagnose of would-be entrepreneurs in different cultural settings
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2005-06-15
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper presents a model of entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior in two different cultural settings. Young entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship students in Germany and the United States were researched to evaluate the model and to identify cultural differences in the decision to start a company. The central research question was: How does the cultural context influence the decision-making and risk-taking behavior of entrepreneurs? The overall results of this comparative study indicate that significant differences between entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs in risk-taking behavior are culturally driven. These results confirm earlier U.S. studies that distinguish between risk propensity and risk perception with respect to entrepreneurs' risk behavior and ex-tended these results to an international, intercultural sample. The results of this study identify cultural context as a key factor for the differences in entrepreneurial risk behavior. Also, these results allow potential entrepreneurs to use the conducted experiment as an individual diagnostic instrument; this makes it possible to identify individual anomalies in risk and decision-making behavior contributing to a better understanding of suitable entrepreneurial behavior as well as to reveal discrepancies between self-assessment and actual behavior. These results also present a set of instruments, techniques and a framework for an improved understanding of potentially attractive, but risky, start-up opportunities.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Book title
Golden Opportunities for Entrepreneurship
Start page
1131
End page
1140
Event Title
50th World Conference of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB)
Event Location
Washington DC, USA
Event Date
15.-18.06.2005
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
70469