Entrepreneurship-Hop, Makes Amusing Use of

¶ … Entrepreneurship-Hop, makes amusing use of rhymes to describe this author's perceptions of differences in entrepreneurship across countries. He thinks that Americans lack soul and take quantitative approaches that are profit driven. In sharp contrast, according to Gartner, Germans are concerned with the social context of entrepreneurship and Nordics approach it with curiosity, playfulness and passion, focusing on humanities and arts. The French are very qualitative and process oriented. Gartner dismisses the relative obscurity of French entrepreneurship with the excuse that it is written in French.

He concludes with an analysis of the UK which purportedly believes that small is good and is noted for its methodological diversity. Also, the national government is a major source of research funds in this country, and, thus, Gartner asserts that a lot of entrepreneurship goes into analyzing government policies. Analysis The only value that Gartner's paper offers is that he does get the reader to think about cultural impacts on entrepreneurship. His comparisons are sufficient enough to make one believe that there are probably many differences between countries.

However, he goes way overboard with stereotypes and personal biases which seem to be unnecessarily negative and often not even true. and, his idea is nothing new; some time ago, economists (e.g., Schumpeter, 1934), sociologists (e.g., Weber, 1930), and psychologists (e.g., McClelland, 1961) have observed that national culture relates to entrepreneurial activity (Shaker, 2002). Their work has been followed by countless others. Further, one has to wonder if Gartner has even identified the right types of variables that a) are relevant to entrepreneurship and b) can be appropriately measured and compared.

For instance, frequently studied dimensions of culture in the context of entrepreneurship are individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power-distance, and masculinity-femininity (Hofstede, cited in Shaker, 2002) Researchers have shown that entrepreneurship is facilitated by cultures that are high in individualism, low in uncertainty avoidance, low in power-distance, and high in masculinity (Shaker, 2002). Gartner, on the other hand, appears to focus on his own personal and wide-spread generalizations about the personalities of people from different countries. Worst of all, some of Gartner's beliefs are easily proved wrong.

For instance, consider his rhyme: And isn't it an irony, That entrepreneur is "French" in its entirety? To talk about entrepreneurship will always be, An inherently French idea as the field's reality." One would think that the French embody entrepreneurship after reading Gartner. The reality is just the opposite. From an international perspective the 8.5% rate of entrepreneurship in France is very low: the business ownership rates in Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States are substantially higher: 10.9, 10.3, 10.4 and 18.2%, respectively (EIM, 2000).

For whatever reasons, Gartner aims his criticism at Americans when the United States is one of the world's leaders in entrepreneurship. To say that Americans lack soul and passion in their.