Debroux Female Entrepreneurship in East and South-East Asia

Opportunities and Challenges
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-78063-242-1
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 260 Seiten

Reihe: Chandos Asian Studies Series

This detailed study of female entrepreneurship in Asia examines the high economic growth that is increasingly driven by market-oriented economic reforms favouring entrepreneurship. There is a higher awareness by women of their political and socio-economic rights and recognition by society at large of social legitimacy of women pursuing business activities in their own right. This book assesses socio-cultural and economic factors influencing female entrepreneurship in Asia as well as the process and the tools and challenges that accompany it. - Opportunity to acquire knowledge on the socio-economic roles played by women as entrepreneurs in the region - Description and analysis of the issue in countries at different stages of economic development and with different socio-economic and cultural environment - A broad approach encompassing historical, political, sociological, economics and businesses-related aspects of female entrepreneurship

Professor Philippe Debroux is a Professor of International Management at Soka University (Japan). He is also visiting Professor of International Management and Human Resource Management on a regular basis at Hanoi Economic University, Tsukuba University (Japan), Rennes University Center for Japanese Studies (France) and Brussels Solvay Business School MBA program.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Debroux, Philippe

Leseproben

2 The rising tide of entrepreneurship
Introduction
In the entrepreneurial economy that has been becoming more popular since the 1980s, there is a revival of the Schumpeterian notion of the entrepreneur exploring new areas of growth at the heart of the economic process. Spearheaded by the pervasive influence of the political and economic neoliberal paradigm since the Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher regimes in the 1980s, it develops because of the growing importance of the service sector and the shift of competitive advantage towards knowledge-driven industries. Industrial policies have undergone significant changes over the last three decades, during which venture businesses have been recognized as key drivers of innovation and growth in the developed world. But at the same time entrepreneurship is perceived as a vector of progress and dynamism that may help to find solutions to economic underdevelopment and poverty in the developing world.1 We will see later on that its success requires the fulfillment of many social and economic conditions that are not always currently satisfied in developing countries. Nevertheless, entrepreneurship becomes the dominant business philosophy because of its multiple virtues: creativity, innovation, initiative-taking, flexibility and job creation. In socialist Vietnam as in upper-middle-income Malaysia, entrepreneurship, especially linked to ICT, is part of the drive towards modernity and is at the center of the state development strategy. The growing importance of entrepreneurship in economic development
It has been noted that as economies develop, the rate of self-employment tends to decrease alongside the growth of salaried jobs providing a regular, stable income and the rise in the opportunity cost of self- employment.2 This is supported by the data collected by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).3 However, the need for a more nuanced understanding reflecting the diversity of situations is emphasized. A curvilinear relationship between GDP per capita and entrepreneurial activities is observed, with the highest levels of activity in less prosperous countries and lowest levels in middle-income ones.4 Noorderhaven et al. note that this decline may not occur in the most economically advanced countries.5 In Japan and Korea, as in other developed countries, the decline of self-employment and traditional small retail shops continues and, especially in Japan, the dense network of subcontractors is undergoing a deep mutation. This has led to a drastic drop in the number of companies recorded in Japan over the last 15 years.6 In Korea, too, with the end of state protection of some small business sectors, the development of welfare policy and the emergence of a new division of labor in a globalized world, some types of necessity entrepreneurship are declining sharply.7 But, at the same time, new technologies lead to lower transaction costs and a decrease of the minimum efficient scale in many industries, enabling small companies to compete in a larger range of sectors than before, with new business models, modes of production and inter-company relationships. Malaysia is following the path of Japan and Korea in terms of the diversity, speed of transformation and sophistication of its markets. Likewise, the fast transition towards economic modernity and a free market-based economic system that is under way in a country like Vietnam is likely to lead the country in the same direction. As a consequence, it is not surprising to see the emergence of both opportunity-type entrepreneurship pulled by the drive towards entrepreneurial economies and necessity-type entrepreneurship induced by the growing employment instability. As Verheul et al. argued, at the highest levels of economic development a trend towards increased prevalence of self-employment of different kinds may indeed emerge.8 Japanese and Korean women (and, increasingly, Malaysian and Vietnamese women as well) are not opening small shops any more, or, if they do, it is to sell differentiated custom- made products on the internet and sometimes develop their own brands. Rather, freelancers, professional specialists and teleworkers create SOHO-type (small office, home office) categories of businesses in the ICT sector or utilizing ICT in their business policy.9 In Japan the number of SOHOs is estimated at 5 million, with about one-third being incorporated businesses. In Korea the Small and Medium Business Association (SMBA) conducts an e-lancer fostering project, with the objective of generating internet-based female freelancers under the aegis of the Korean Venture Business Women’s Association (KOVWA).10 Thus entrepreneurship is likely to develop in more diversified ways than before, evolving with market changes and based on companies’ interdependence. In the era of the capitalism of the self that is penetrating the mindsets of Asian women, if certain conditions are fulfilled, entrepreneurship may indeed become a credible alternative to salaried jobs for some, and women businesses can find their place in the emerging network-based capitalism. The growing legitimacy of entrepreneurship
Institutional theory focuses on the roles of social, political and economic systems in which companies operate and gain their legitimacy.11 As explained by Scott, institutions provide for the rules of the game and define the available ways to operate by discouraging, constraining or encouraging given behavioral patterns. They have an impact on the decision-making process in giving indications of what would be acceptable or not, and in determining the individual socialization of norms and behaviors in a given society. Scott describes the three pillars on which societies are built: the regulative, the normative and the cognitive. The regulative pillar is formal and legally codified, while the normative one includes non-codified attitudes present in societies. When normative expectations and attitudes are largely diffused in society, they are gradually internalized by individuals and become accepted as the norms to which everybody is encouraged to conform. Institutions give stability and predictability to social behavior. Pressures and expectations can be exerted by institutional constituents, such as the state, professions, interest groups, public opinion and family. The underlying logic of the regulative pillar is conformity to the rules and laws, whereas that of the normative pillar relates to what is considered appropriate.12 But responses to institutional pressures and expectations may range from passive conformity to active resistance, depending on the nature and context of the pressures. In general terms, it has been said that Asian cultural traits and standard values, including in the selected countries, are not propitious to the development of entrepreneurial spirit. Confucian values, linked for instance to respect for hierarchy, family responsibility and social risk associated with failure, present in Japan, Korea and Vietnam could inhibit entrepreneurs in taking risk and engaging in maverick behavior.13 The traditionally low social status of the merchant class in the Confucian world further complicates the entrepreneur’s task.14 A similar mindset is said to be dominant in Malaysia in the Malay population, where respect for authority tends to discourage challenging or bypassing the hierarchy.15 Up until recently, for a mix of religious, philosophical and ideological reasons,16 this strong sense of social hierarchy permeating human relationships made entrepreneurial endeavors a relatively unattractive professional choice, especially for younger members of the establishment in the whole East and South-East Asian region. Starting a business is still nowadays perceived as a difficult and risky project. The image of small business in the four countries remains that of management instability, poor working environment and a high level of failures. For the young members of the establishment, starting their career by creating a new business is not (yet?) considered as proof of a gutsy, challenging spirit. In societies where the importance given to the ‘other-regarding’ social evaluation is still paramount, it is either more seen as an apparent failure to have completed one’s study in an ‘appropriate’ educational institution that should have ‘naturally’ led to a job in public service or a large and more prestigious private business commensurate with one’s social status, or it is considered as a significant deviance from social norms. For those not belonging to the social élite and who succeeded in graduating from an academic establishment, prestige employment represents a unique opportunity to climb the social ladder; taking the risk of creating a start-up (whose failure would ruin probably forever their dream of social advancement and reduce to nothing the huge financial sacrifice of their family in putting them through education) means missing out on this opportunity. In the Western world failure is less perceived as having a negative impact on the social reputation of the family of the entrepreneurs, and has fewer long-term negative consequences for their professional future (at least in the United States, probably much less in some European countries that are close to the Asian mindset in this regard). Care should be taken, however, to avoid any kind of reification of the institutional effects on entrepreneurship, and explanations based on cultural atavism should be...