Ethnic entrepreneurship in a multicultural context : regional development and the unintended lock-in effects

• This article focuses on South Africa, the home country for several ethnic groups. In this article ethnic entrepreneurship refers to people who share a common national background with some shared culture and who perceive themselves, and are perceived by others as separate (Waldinger et al., 1990; Yinger, 1998). The purpose is to illustrate how ethnicity driven laws and directives formed by a government that has "bought into" the Western discourse of entrepreneurship and a traditional view on ethnic entrepreneurship create lock-in effects on the individual as well as on the societal levels. Contrasting these views with ethnic groups as social organizations and the three perspectives of culture as integration, as differentiation, and as fragmentation we fulfill our purpose. The South African context is introduced to the reader and the paper ends with a discussion where lock-in effects of ethnic entrepreneurship are brought up: institutional factors, loss of knowledge; a subcultural exchange, a transfer of the Western discourse of entrepreneurship and the lack of a Barthian change agent representing the fragmentation perspective.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Africa

Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment

Culture as fragmentation

Western discourse of entrepreneurship

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