Investigations related to national culture and young are becoming more important (Brown et al., 2002; Larson, 2011). Gelhaar et al. (2007) state that “there is great concern about the poor academic performance and wiling to entrepreneurship of the adolescents and young adults in European countries, especially in the southern regions, where youth unemployment is very high”. For Iberia it's very important that adolescents and young adults have the want to become entrepreneurs, by developing new projects but, mainly, by having entrepreneurship as a purpose for their professional life. Entrepreneurship should be developed both at an individual level and within the organizations. It´s key to achive success, since originates innovation, both incremental and disruptive. This exploratory research aims to identify the relations between teenagers' socio and cultural values and their want to become entrepreneurs. In concrete, if socio and cultural dimensions identified by Hofstede and Minkov (2010) are related with the want to become entrepreneur.
TopIntroduction
Investigations related to national culture and young are becoming more numerous and important (Brown, Larson & Saraswathi, 2002; Larson, 2011). Gelhaar et al. (2007) state that “there is great concern about the poor academic performance and wiling to entrepreneurship of adolescents and young adults in many European countries, especially in the southern regions, where youth unemployment is very high.”
Cross-cultural research on young adolescents published in recent years is mainly focused, among others, on studying the impact of national culture on behavior and anxiety disorders (Adewuya & Adewumi, 2007), access and the use of Internet (Gong, Li & Stump 2007), improving teaching and learning (Sulkowski & Dakin, 2009), alcohol consumption (Kuntsche, Stewart & Cooper, 2008; Gonzalez & McNulty, 2010), predicting the influence of adolescents on family decisions (Chen-Jen, 2011), electronic commerce (Carlin, 2009) and buying cloth motivations (Chen-Jen, 2011).
There is limited research aiming to identify relations between socio and cultural values and entrepreneurship on teenagers and young adults. For Iberia it’s very important that adolescents and young adults have the want to become entrepreneurs. By developing new projects but, mainly, by having this as a purpose for their professional life. Entrepreneurship is developed both at an individual level and within the organizations. It is a key factor for success since originates innovation, both incremental and disruptive.
This exploratory and innovative research aims to identify relations among teenagers’ socio and cultural values and their want to become entrepreneurs. In concrete, if the dimensions identified by Hofstede (1980, 2001) and Hofstede, Hofstde and Minkov (2010) are related with the want to become an entrepreneur.
To conduct the research, we have applied Hofstede VSM 2008 methodology. Since this methodology is mainly used for adult professionals (not for students, as most teenagers are) we have contact Hofstede, himself, in order to evaluate how to adapt. After receiving his recommendation, VSM 2008 was adapted to this target group. There was no change in the questions or scale used, but, only, in some questions meaning. At the end, an additional question was introduced in the questionnaire, related to the want to become an entrepreneur. This question is not considered to calculate each socio cultural index, being just used to evaluate the willing to entrepreneurship.
The research was conducted during 2013. At the end we have received 548 answers from teenagers between 16 and 18 years old, from private and public schools in Portugal. Questionnaire reliability was measured by applying Cronbach Alpha. Value obtained is 0.87.
Results identify the existence of dimensions and items more related with the want to be an entrepreneur, and differences on socio and cultural values from those teenagers who want to develop their own business and the others who don´t. Also, enables to verify relations between each of Hofstede’s dimensions and the want to become entrepreneur.