Development in western ideology of entrepreneurialism and their (mis)applications in the context of non-western cultures

Abstract

The focus of this article is a conceptual analysis of the western entrepreneurship paradigm and its practical implications, based on a desktop approach. In order to bring a holistic view of the western paradigm, the following questions were raised: What constitutes the western paradigm of entrepreneurship? How does this paradigm transfer to other cultures? Why is this paradigm criticized? The purpose of evaluating the western paradigm is to gain an understanding of western ideologies in entrepreneurship to consider a suitable methodology for an alternative approach in entrepreneurship research. The different disciplinary perspectives and the reductionist approach of the western paradigm resulted in limited returns to entrepreneurship programs since one disciplinary perspective can never handle all relevancies of entrepreneurial holism. It may be better to seek a context-sensitive alternative approach. Keywords

National culture has an impact on antecedents of engagement. Or does it?

“…As a result of being a colony of the Portuguese, Dutch and the British for over 350 years and having attracted many foreign investors, Sri Lanka's private sector has adopted Western management theories and practices (Chandrakumara and Budhwar, 2005; Gamage and Wickramasinghe, 2012), including employee engagement. However, researchers assert that this has not contributed significantly to organisational success in Sri Lanka, attributing the failure to differences in sociocultural factors between Sri Lanka and Western countries (Gamage and Wickramasinghe, 2012). Despite recognising the possible impact of sociocultural factors, there is limited research on employee engagement in Sri Lanka.…”