Cultural Challenges and Difficulties for Global Entrepreneurs

This report examines the cultural challenges and difficulties faced by entrepreneurs seeking to globalize their businesses. It explores the importance of globalization and its impact on entrepreneurs, highlighting challenges such as competition, customer needs, and language barriers. The research delves into the cultural aspects of entrepreneurship, emphasizing the significance of understanding cultural differences in communication and business practices. It covers the impact of culture on entrepreneurial activities, the challenges entrepreneurs encounter, and the importance of adapting to different cultural contexts. The report also reviews relevant literature, including studies on global entrepreneurship and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), to provide a comprehensive understanding of the subject. It concludes with recommendations for entrepreneurs aiming to overcome these challenges and succeed in the global market.

Running head: CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
Cultural Challenges and difficulties for entrepreneurs to go global
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

2
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
Abstract
Globalization is important for companies and organizations in terms of enhancing the reputation.
This is also applicable for the budding entrepreneurs dreaming of expanding their business in the
threshold of foreign markets. However, in the competitive ambience of the market, the
entrepreneurs are bound to encounter severe challenges in the form of substitutes, bargaining
power of the buyers and suppliers. Exposure of strategic approach eases out the process of
tackling these challenges for the entrepreneurs. Typical component of this approach is planning,
which helps the entrepreneurs to systematize the business activities, according to their priority.
This research in spite of the limitations of time and financial constraints, delves deep into the
major challenges, which the entrepreneurs face in the process of globalization. The propositions
of the research enlivens the preconceived notions of the businesspersons, especially, the aspiring
entrepreneurs, in terms of displaying theoretical approach towards achieving effective solutions
for the potential challenges towards globalization.
Keywords: Culture, Globalization, Entrepreneurs, Cultural challenges

3
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................5
Introduction..................................................................................................................................5
Problem statement.......................................................................................................................5
Research aim................................................................................................................................6
Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................6
Research Question.......................................................................................................................6
2.0 Literature review........................................................................................................................7
Introduction..................................................................................................................................7
Culture.........................................................................................................................................7
Entrepreneurs...............................................................................................................................8
Challenges faced by the entrepreneurs........................................................................................8
Globe study..................................................................................................................................9
TPB and global entrepreneurial intention..................................................................................10
2.7 Difficulties faced by the entrepreneurs to go global............................................................11
2.8 Conceptual framework.........................................................................................................11
3.0 Methodology.......................................................................................................................12
Introduction................................................................................................................................12

4
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
Research Philosophy..................................................................................................................12
Research approach.....................................................................................................................12
Data collection and analysis......................................................................................................13
Sample size................................................................................................................................13
Summary....................................................................................................................................13
Action plan.................................................................................................................................14
Analysis.........................................................................................................................................16
Thematic analysis......................................................................................................................16
Critical perspective towards the statistical data analysis...........................................................19
Interview responses of the entrepreneurs..................................................................................19
Conclusion, recommendation and limitations...............................................................................21
Limitations and conclusions......................................................................................................21
Recommendations......................................................................................................................21
References and Bibliography.........................................................................................................24

5
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
1.0 Introduction
Introduction
The rise of globalization in the current era has made the term ‘global entrepreneurship’ a
very well known word. The term Global entrepreneurship is used for those entrepreneurs who
operate on the global level and businesses around the world. It plays a very important role in
today’s businesses, since many of the entrepreneurs seek for the multinational corporations in
order to evaluate their skill of leadership. However, these global entrepreneurs face many
challenges and opportunities. The entrepreneurs must understand the global nature of the
business as well as the environment in which they are operating in order to stand successful in
the coming days. Hence, the following research intends to discuss and critically evaluate the
global nature of business and the environment for the entrepreneurs who look for global
corporations to operate their business. By considering the outstanding impact and importance of
entrepreneurship n the modern days as well as the behavior for individuals and contemporary
economies, the most vital articles that are dedicated to the entrepreneurship were investigated in
order to get a deeper insight view into the subject.
Problem statement
In the competitive ambience, globalization is a major challenge for the entrepreneurs.
Viewing it from the perspective of culture, the intensity of the challenge is aggravated. As a
matter of specification, in order to secure the market position, the companies and organizations
compromise with the needs of the customers. In case of the entrepreneurs, this compromise adds
vulnerability to the market position of the enterprises. Culture, here, relates with the failure of the
enterprises to lure large number of customers through the appropriate exposure of the hospitality.

6
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
The previous sentence indicates the issue of poor communication skills, which highlights the
issue of language barriers. This research would peek into these challenges to assess the approach
of the entrepreneurs, especially towards cultural challenges,
Research aim
The aim of this research is to understand the cultural challenges and difficulties, which
the entrepreneurs face during the process of globalizing their business.
Research Objectives
 To excavate the main challenges, which entrepreneurs face in the process of penetrating
into the foreign markets
 To assess the real life situations and circumstances, which compel the entrepreneurs to
encounter complex cultural differences
 To suggest relevant recommendations for enhancing the ease of the entrepreneurs in
terms of overcoming the challenges
Research Question
Research questions are framed in order to achieve the set research objectives. These
research questions are as follows:
 What are the main cultural challenges that the entrepreneurs face when they try to go
global? What are the real life scenarios where the entrepreneurs face obstacles dues to the
cultural differences? How do they deal with it? What could entrepreneurs do to avoid these challenges?

7
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
2.0 Literature review
Introduction
This chapter considers various sources for enriching the knowledge of the readers
regarding the correlation between the variables. Application of theories and models enlivens the
challenges for the entrepreneurs in terms of overcoming the challenges. The conceptual
framework acts as a summarization of the relationship between the two variables.
Culture
The entrepreneurship profile all over the world shows similar kind of features but still,
there are some, who are under the influence of the culture. One of the most proper definitions of
culture is that- Culture is something that shapes the perceptions and interpretations of people.
The difference in between perceptions and interpretations leads to emergence of different
behaviors. According to Spencer-Oatey and Franklin (2012), “Culture is that complex whole
which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as a member of society". It is said that entrepreneurs are one of the most
dynamic segments of the society. They are immediately over piped by the cultural change and to
survive, they must follow the current trends and events very closely. Variations in the
entrepreneurial activities are lead by culture. These variations are that the cultural background
has a conclusive importance on the exchange of information, beliefs, local culture, practices and
understandings that are shared by the community. Also, the cultures that are regional-based,
build a foundation for the economic activities by several factors like innovation.

8
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs are the ones, who have initiated their professional career. It is at this stage,
when consciousness is of utmost importance. They differ in their education and experience and
the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who share certain personal attributes such as,
determination, creativity, flexibility, dedication, leadership, self-confidence, passion and
“SMARTS”. Each of the entrepreneurs has these qualities in them in different degrees.
Moreover, conglomeration of culture with the workplace is a serious concern in terms of
enhancing the efficiency. This is applicable also for the entrepreneurs. Adhering to the
organization culture should be the sole vision of the entrepreneurs for achieving loyalty, trust and
dependence from the customers. Typical examples of this is respecting the individual sentiments
and purchasing power of the customers. Within this, personal values and beliefs of the
entrepreneurs attain a second preference. Countering this, if the entrepreneurs respect their
culture, values and customs, automatically they would be able to reflect this respect in their
professional and corporate outputs (Cruz, Hamilton and Jack 2012). The critics are still confused
about the place of culture within the workplace. Countering this confusion, it can be said that
innovation within the performance of the entrepreneurs with due respect to the organizational
culture enhances their professionalism.
Challenges faced by the entrepreneurs
There are many challenges that an entrepreneur faces. The most difficult are to balance
the decisiveness with proper caution; to be ready for a chance by having done all the preliminary
work that are possible in order to minimize the likelihood of the new endeavor and; to be an
individual of action of actions, who do not delay before grabbing a chance or opportunity. Here,
the critics are of the view that the most important challenge, which the entrepreneurs encounter,

9
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
is the language barrier. This is in terms of the lack of understanding regarding the specific tastes
and preferences of the customers in the foreign market. Moreover, the entrepreneurs are
unfamiliar with the language of the foreign country. The third challenge is the threat of
substitute, which compels the entrepreneurs to face depression in terms of setting and expanding
their business.
Globe study
Different studies have been carried out in order to identify the natural culture but in this
research, the education system, family structure etc are considered to be effective within the
extent of the culture. Hence, the popular GLOBE study were evaluated (House et al. 2013). It
consists of nine cultural dimensions and that are power distance, institutional collectivism,
uncertainty avoidance, gender egalitarianism, in-group collectivism, assertiveness, performance-
orientation, future-orientation and humane-orientation (Kabasakal et al, 2012). The ‘power
distance’ refers to “the general measure of the degree of interpersonal influence that those who
hold power in a social structure can exert over those who lack power" (Sturm and Antonakis
2015). The Institutional collectivism measures the degree to which the society encourages
collective action. The uncertainty avoidance dimension refers to the measure of degree to which
the society members feel uncomfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. The gender
egalitarianism refers to the extent to which a society or a particular organization minimizes the
gender role differences and the gender discrimination (Connell 2014). The in-group collectivism
dimension measures the degree to which an individual express loyalty, pride and cohesiveness in
his organizations as well as family (Vukonjanski et al. 2012). The assertiveness dimension refers
to the degree to which the people in an organization are assertive or confrontational in their
relationship with the others (Ozgen 2012). On the other hand, the future-orientation is the degree

10
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
to which an individual in the organization or society engages in behaviors like future planning,
investing, and gratification delaying. Lastly, according to Radziszewska (2014) the humane-
orientation refers to the degree to which the society members are friendly, fair, altruistic, caring,
kind and generous to others
TPB and global entrepreneurial intention
TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior) has postulated three ideational independent
determinants of the entrepreneurial intention (Fini et al. 2012). Entrepreneurial intention refers to
the self-acknowledged belief by an individual that he intend to start a new business venture and
intentionally plans to do the same at some point in his future. Here, behavioral science is crucial
in terms of evaluating the intellect of the entrepreneurs (Iqbal et al. 2012). The second is the
subjective norms that refer to the discerned opinions gathered from the social reference groups,
such as friend and families. Moreover, the level of PBC or Perceived Behavioral Control is also
applicable in this context. This is in terms of assessing the response of the entrepreneurs when
place in a particular circumstance (Mohamed et al. 2012). It reflects the perceived potential to
become a global entrepreneur. It is said that the person who perceives to become more able to
conduct global entrepreneurship activities are more presumably to involve in them than in the
other career paths. Other studies on this topic suggest that positive attitudes towards the
entrepreneurship would increase the appeal of an individual towards self-employment (Moriano
et al. 2012).
2.7 Difficulties faced by the entrepreneurs to go global
According to Autio, Pathak and Wennberg (2013), for the entrepreneurs, great opportunities are
associated with greater risk. The greater complexity of the new businesses of the entrepreneurs
increases the challenge of management faced by them while making the success more rewarding side

11
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
by side. In order to deal with these complexities of the international operations, the cultural
differences and the networks of the alliances requires a set of specialised skills with well-documented
and complex skills of domestic entrepreneur. The small business only focus on the local markets but
for a big firm, this trend means a continuous erosion of the market by the small and specialised firms
that are well equipped global products and cheap production costs. The modern trends towards the
market fragmentation would only be accelerated and the present large companies will require to
have strategies in the place in order to meet these challenges.
2.8 Conceptual framework
Cultur Entrepreneu Globalization
Cultural challenges which entrepreneurs face in the process of
globalization:
 Communication gaps; Poor infrastructure
 Failure to cope up with the psychic and other psychological
differences; Handling the variable needs, demands and requirements
of the customers
 Harsh regulations imposed by the government; Political unrest

12
CURRENT THEMES IN BUSINESS
3.0 Methodology
Introduction
Research methodology is the procedure that helps to conduct the entire research in a
systematic and organized manner. It outlines a proper structure of the research. It can be
described as a process for research, which is very organized and structured. It comprises of the
various types of techniques that an individual may use while conducting the research. It
describes different types of pertinent ideas and concepts that are appropriate with this specific
research study. Furthermore, Madan and Mishra (2014), has stated that the “research
methodology explains the chosen research methods”. This part includes the research philosophy,
its purpose and the approach of research. In addition, the researcher in this chapter discusses the
process of data collection, and the techniques of data analysis.
Research Philosophy
The researcher selects positivism philosophy in this research for shedding light on the
scientific and objective facts related to the cultural challenges, which the entrepreneurs face in
the process of globalization.
Research approach
Exploratory approach has been selected by the researcher to explore the cultural
challenges encountered by the entrepreneurs while venturing into the foreign markets for
expanding the business.