Uncertainty Avoidance and the Rate of Business Ownership Across 21 OECD Countries, 1976–2004

Sander Wennekers (), Roy Thurik, André Stel and Niels Noorderhaven
Additional contact information
Sander Wennekers: EIM Business and Policy Research

Chapter Chapter 13 in Entrepreneurship and Culture, 2010, pp 271-299 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Persistent differences in the level of business ownership across countries have attracted the attention of scientific as well as political debate. Cultural as well as economic influences are assumed to play a role. This paper deals with the influence of cultural attitudes towards uncertainty on the rate of business ownership across 21 OECD countries. First, the concepts of uncertainty and risk are elaborated, as well as their relevance for entrepreneurship. An occupational choice model is introduced to underpin our reasoning at the macro-level. Second, regression analysis using pooled macro data for 1976, 1990 and 2004 and controlling for several economic variables, yields evidence that uncertainty avoidance is positively correlated with the prevalence of business ownership. According to our model, a restrictive climate of large organizations in high uncertainty avoidance countries pushes individuals striving for autonomy towards self-employment. Regressions for these 3 years separately show that in 2004, this positive correlation is no longer found, indicating that a compensating pull of entrepreneurship in countries with low uncertainty avoidance may have gained momentum in recent years. Third, an interaction term between uncertainty avoidance and GDP per capita in the pooled panel regressions shows that the historical negative relationship between GDP per capita and the level of business ownership is substantially weaker for countries with lower uncertainty avoidance. This suggests that rising opportunity costs of self-employment play a less important role in this cultural environment, or are being compensated by increasing entrepreneurial opportunities.

Keywords: Capita Income; Business Ownership; Uncertainty Avoidance; Nascent Entrepreneur; Occupational Choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Uncertainty avoidance and the rate of business ownership across 21 OECD countries, 1976–2004 (2007)
Working Paper: Uncertainty avoidance and the rate of business ownership across 21 OECD countries, 1976-2004 (2006)
Working Paper: Uncertainty Avoidance and the Rate of Business Ownership Across 21 OECD Countries, 1976-2004 (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-87910-7_13

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783540879107

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-87910-7_13

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().