ABSTRACT
Before we look at China in more detail (major hypotheses, findings, and cases), we need to make some general remarks that relate entrepreneurship and cross-cultural approaches. Up to 1990 there were few studies on crosscultural entrepreneurship, but recently there has been an upsurge of studies that compare entrepreneurship across cultures or nations (the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] study), and the number of studies on cross-cultural entrepreneurship has increased dramatically. It is not necessary to give a complete overview of cross-cultural entrepreneurship because there is an excellent review of cross-cultural entrepreneurship research by Hayton, George, and Zahra (2002). These seem to be the main conclusions of the Hayton et al. review: First, most studies on national culture base their estimates of the cultures to be studied on Hofstede’s seminal research (Hofstede, 1991). Second, individualism is probably positively, power distance negatively, and uncertainty avoidance negatively correlated with entrepreneurship and related constructs (such as innovativeness). Third, there are relationships between national culture and interpersonal differences (that are, in turn, related to entrepreneurship, such as achievement motive or entrepreneurial “scripts”). Finally, national
culture is related to corporate entrepreneurship and specific strategies related to corporate entrepreneurship, for example, investing in greenfield sites or acquisitions as strategies of expansion.
