Title: Western perspectives on entrepreneurship and their sensitivity in the context of Asian cultures

Authors: Helen Ramya Gamage; Ananda Wickramasinghe

Addresses: School of Management and Marketing, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Queensland, 4701 QLD, Australia. ' School of Management and Marketing, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Queensland, 4701 QLD, Australia

Abstract: This paper explores western perspectives and discursive practices rooted in entrepreneurship, and argue their limited applicability in non-western cultures. It appears that the western entrepreneurship paradigm does not draw on the deep-rooted settings in society and culture of many developing countries. As a result, indigenous entrepreneurial realities are not well understood. The methods employed to transform western ideologies into other cultural settings were ineffective as they were not developed to be flexible to contextual variations. The different disciplinary perspectives and the reductionist approach of the western paradigm resulted in limited returns to entrepreneurship programmes since one disciplinary perspective can never handle all relevancies of entrepreneurial holism. It may be better to seek a context-sensitive alternative approach.

Keywords: indigenous entrepreneurship; critical perspectives; western entrepreneurship; cultural practices; Asian cultures; Asia; western perspectives; discursive practices; non-western cultures; deep-rooted settings; society; developing countries; entrepreneurial realities; western ideologies; cultural settings; contextual variations; disciplinary perspectives; reductionist approaches; entrepreneurship programmes; entrepreneurial holism; context-sensitive approaches; India; Sri Lanka; China; Japan; Pacific Rim; small and medium-sized enterprises; SMEs; entrepreneurs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2012.050168

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2012 Vol.17 No.4, pp.525 - 537

Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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