Post-Materialism as a Cultural Factor Influencing Entrepreneurial Activity across Nations
27 augustus 2002
The study of the determinants of
entrepreneurship at the country level has been domi-nated by economic
influences. The relative stability of differences in levels of entrepreneurship
across countries suggests that other forces such as certain institutional and/or
cultural factors are at play. The objective of this paper is to explore how
post-materialism explains differences in entrepreneurial activity across
countries. Entrepreneurial activity is defined as the percent of a country's
population that is self-employed, using a broad definition that also includes
CEOs of both unincorporated and legally incorporated establishments. The measure
for post-materialism is based upon Inglehart's four-item post-materialism index.
Because of the known interactions between economic and cultural factors found in
previous research, a set of economic and cultural factors is included to provide
a clearer picture of the independent role post-materialism plays in prediction
of self-employment levels. In particular, education, life satisfaction, church
attendance and political (left or right) extremism are used as control variables
in our analyses using data of 14 OECD countries over in recent period. Findings
confirm the significance of post-materialism in predicting self-employment even
when controlling for economic and cultural factors. However, strong co-variation
between post-materialism and other cultural factors makes it difficult to
clearly discriminate between the effects.
Auteur(s): dr. J. Hutjes, prof. dr. L. M. Uhlaner, prof.dr. A.R. Thurik
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