The entrepreneurial advantages of experiencing foreignness: leveraging shocks for capability clusters
Cross Cultural & Strategic Management
ISSN: 2059-5794
Article publication date: 5 January 2022
Issue publication date: 22 March 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the “shocks to the system” concept in image theory, a mid-range theoretical model is developed to illuminate understanding on why cross-cultural experience is so conducive to stimulating entrepreneurship yet has remained largely unexplained at the individual level.
Design/methodology/approach
The novel idea is put forth that experience of foreignness, in itself, can be harnessed as a powerful cognitive resource for entrepreneurship – particularly the nascent stages of new venture development. Providing cross-cultural exposures arouse “self-image shocks”, they manifest over time as skill clusters that reflect the sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities at the heart of entrepreneurship. This paper's pivot helps delineate a common mechanism to explain how a diverse range of seemingly disparate cross-cultural experiences can be processed in a way that enhances entrepreneurial pursuits.
Findings
The insights of this paper reinforce the need for educators and policymakers to encourage and provide opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs to engage in cross-cultural and overseas exposures as they are influential for stimulating each of the core sets of entrepreneurial capabilities. The model and synthesis table also help to practically unpack how to design and plan such cultural experiences to optimize the enduring entrepreneurial advantages.
Originality/value
The author turns a long-standing assumption surrounding cultural differences in entrepreneurship on its head. The shocks and tensions arising from intercultural interactions are not always inevitable liabilities to be “managed away” or attenuated. Rather, cross-cultural experience can be explicitly leveraged as an asset for nascent venturing as the juxtapositions they evoke provide both proximal and distal enhancements to ways in which entrepreneurs think and develop skills at the core of venturing.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to extend his gratitude to Lowell Busenitz for the countless hours spent throughout his doctoral work helping to make the ideas developed in this paper as sharp and impactful as they can be.
Citation
Pidduck, R.J. (2022), "The entrepreneurial advantages of experiencing foreignness: leveraging shocks for capability clusters", Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 268-296. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-10-2020-0211
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited