Entreprenuership and Culture Essay Example

rather it is shaped by culture hence different cultural backgrounds have different impact on people’s ability to engage into entrepreneurship. Hofstede defines culture as "the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another"(1991).

The mental programming referred to by Hofstede consists of shared values, beliefs and norms. These mental constructs influence how people socialized within a particular culture perceive events; they also help to determine what behaviours are considered appropriate or inappropriate in various social situations. Since the mental programming is shared, i. e. developed through years of socialization within a culture, it results in relatively predictable responses to commonly experienced social situations or contexts.

These characteristic patterns of behaviour create differences between cultures that may be observed and the influence of cultural differences on social processes such as entrepreneurship may be predicted if the underlying social values and norms are known. Hofstede’s definition and observation anchors very well with the Malawian context in which we have different cultural values that program and shape people differently. In Malawi cultural differences are the result of regional, ethnic, social class, religious, gender, and language variations.

Values are held to be a critical feature of culture and cultural distinctiveness. Culture may affect entrepreneurship through individual orientations and higher-level institutions Up until in the late nineties, Malawi was programmed if I may borrow Hofstedes definition with a collective belief that starting a business or running business is only for people who are not educated. This meant that all people who are educated were destined to work in different industries other than starting their own business.

This kind of value was propagated by the

British who emphasised on white collar jobs for those who are educated. This culturally made Malawi society collectively not to believe in entrepreneurship up until so many people became educated leaving those who could not find job with no option but to choose self-employment. By and large Malawi as a nation has been shaped with people who fear taking risks hence the rate of innovation to start new business is highly compromised. A prolonged belief in one common idea or value of white collar jobs affects a country’s innovativeness (Price 2002).

This is why very few people out of those who take courage to start new business in Malawi are imitative entrepreneurs. Our general rate of innovativeness has been affected by the elongated belief in white collar jobs. On the other hand rather than a lack of innovativeness from Malawian entrepreneurs, the reason for such a lack of enterprise is mainly because the state-owned sector has continued to dominate the economic scene (Hisrich & Grachev 1995, pg 3) over more than thirty years after independence preventing private capitalism.

A good example is that entrepreneurial studies are just being introduced in many of our tertiary education systems. Culture is greatly influenced by religion since religion determines a person’s basic values and beliefs. Malawi has different religious beliefs i. e. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and many more. Christianity puts emphasis on education, Islam promoted the spirit of love, sharing and arts (Price 2002). This is why districts such as Mangochi and Machinga are dominated by people that are involved in business.

Because as children grow, they are shaped by an environment in which the majority do business, they start thinking of

the same while young. The end result is that they develop their entrepreneurial activity of innovation and uncertainty bearing while still young. Because they know that business is their only source of income, they tend to put much effort and in the course develop better organisation skills of their business. This means they now embrace an entrepreneurial activity of time and effort if success if to be achieved.

Christians on the other hand are very religious minded. They give more time to religion than to earning material wealth. They even condemned excess earnings and indulgence in comforts with the belief that wealth will be attained in heaven. Industrial activity is, therefore, given secondary consideration by the religious Malawians. Some even believe that they cannot engage in certain entrepreneurial activities such as sale of alcohol, sale of tobacco etc.

These kinds of beliefs which forms part of culture prohibits the creations of new businesses hence Malawi as a country lag behind in entrepreneurial drive. In the Schumpeterian model, entrepreneurs are instruments for introducing innovative change into the economy - they are agents that instigate "creative destruction" in static economies, sweeping away obsolete products and processes through the introduction of innovation. Entrepreneurship always involves high degrees of uncertainty which is inherent in the processes of initiating, developing and commercializing innovation.

The growth of entrepreneurship activities by the Indians in Malawi emanates from the connection with the Islamic culture of high tolerance for ambiguity and a willingness to take risks. Uncertainty avoidance is another cultural dimension closely related to entrepreneurship at least in the sense that Schumpeter (1934) described the term. These are necessary characteristics for innovative entrepreneurs and members of

entrepreneurial organizations, enabling them to navigate the risky and highly uncertain waters of new venture development.

This is why Muslims have stood out to be the most successful business people in Malawi. Family tradition is another aspect of culture that has had great influence in entrepreneurial activities in Malawi. Individuals who for some reason, initiate, establish, maintain and expand new enterprises generate entrepreneurship in society do so from imitating from family members. It is observed that entrepreneurs grow in the tradition of their families and society and accept certain values and norms from these sources.

Many businesses in Malawi follow what I term family tradition attribute of culture. This is a culture in which for example if a family is involved in production of cane furniture, all the children in the family will grow up as cane furniture producers. This is a trend in many businesses that they just follow family line of business whether they make profit or not. The danger however is that new managers have a tendency to seek premature closure of the inherently business and not explore potential creative solutions that may lead to "breakthrough" innovations.

This is why many business that were started by parents like “Kudya Lodge” by the then famous Chimsima families and were growing, were sold out by the children because they did not poses the entrepreneurial characteristics of innovation, risk taking and hard work to compete in the market. Family tradition has led to lack of innovativeness but increase in imitative businesses in Malawi. A true Malawian is recognised by obedience of the cultural values and beliefs.

When the family believes that they can do better if they are educated

and be employed, the young ones are supposed to obey and follow instructions without questioning. This kind of cultural status has killed the spirit of innovations in Malawi because young people continue to follow prescriptions from their family members without evaluating the level of creativity they can bring into society (Hisrich 2009) In conclusion, due to diversity in culture most of which do not support self employment and creativity, Malawi for long time relied on employment other than engagement in business.

Malawians in general lack entrepreneurial characteristics of innovation, risk taking, uncertainty bearing for us to succeed in business. The entrepreneur may be driven not only by economic motives but also by psychological motives like the desire to innovate and create new products (Schumpeter, 1934). Unfortunately Malawian culture has just started opening up to that thanks to the Muluzi regime which started advocating for business other than white collar jobs and idea which has changes thinking of many people.