CIBER Focus: "Entrepreneurship Across Cultures" with Erik Monsen

Entrepreneurs face variable challenges across cultures. Erik Monsen, Senior Lecturer at the Strathclyde Business School, focuses specifically on the employees of entrepreneurs, and the challenges of attracting and keeping them. Since entrepreneurs often cannot offer the same degree of stability or certainty as more established businesses, employees can be hesitant to sign on. Monsen has investigated these issues across cultures, and finds that different problems arise; for example, different fears (of failure, uncertainty, even of conspicuous success) might motivate potential employees from different countries. He has also researched incentives for working in these environments, and found that passion usually trumps monetary reward. Monsen briefly goes into specifics about entrepreneurial culture in India, discussing how such issues as religion, caste, and gender inequality might influence entrepreneurship there. He dissects the concept of entrepreneurship on a linguistic level, emphasizing how hard it can be to define across cultures, and also touches on how misunderstandings arise in a globally integrated business world. *This video was recorded as a part of the Indiana University CIBER Focus Vodcast Series.