Thomas Bradley

Cultural Differences Between Entrepreneurs and Non Entrepreneurs: a Study Performed in the Former Ussr Thomas Bradley

This study was concerned with examining any differences between the cultural value characteristics of entrepreneurs and factory workers in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, and Kyrgyzstan, and whether these differences were similar to those found in other nations. Based upon entrepreneurial theory, the general hypothesis was that entrepreneurs would display different cultural characteristics than factory workers, representing non-entrepreneurs. Hofstede?s VSM 1994 was used to survey 3,363 factory workers and 3,024 vendor-entrepreneurs. The study indicated that the former communist nations have a vibrant entrepreneurial orientation with higher than expected levels of Individualism and Uncertainty Avoidance and a lower than expected level of Power Distance. The results from the research confirmed prior research for the questions of differences for IND, UA, MAS, LTO, valuing work over family, and desiring less security. The results confirmed overall Power Distance for six countries. The researcher concluded that the former communist nations have similar differences and support previous studies.