Cultural comparisons of needed qualities for becoming entrepreneur

Abstract

Entrepreneurial education emphasizes students’ mindset, skills, and capabilities towards an entrepreneurial path. The purpose of this research was to evaluate whether unique qualities are required to start as an entrepreneur due to cultural differences. The second goal was to evaluate whether there are cultural differences between respondents who have an intention of starting a business and those who do not intend to start a business. Data was collected from 23 countries and the total number of respondents was 837. The countries were combined into nine cultural areas. Respondents were mostly bachelor level students in their twenties. Statistical analyses were done with Anova and the t-test. There were statistically significant results. Cultural differences were identified after analysing the whole sample. When divided into groups a) planning to start a business – b) not planning to start a business, cultural differences manifested themselves differently. The results indicate that in entrepreneurial education, cultural differences should be considered and, similarly, individual differences within each culture should be considered. These results can be used to enhance entrepreneurial education in institutions of higher learning.