Doctoral Dissertation Research: Enterprising Value: Cultural Models of Entrepreneurship in Diverse Economic Landscapes

创业从根本上讲是通过识别、评估和利用市场机会来创造和表达价值。然而，需要研究来了解这一过程如何展开，以及它是否在美国和更广泛的全球经济中跨文化和/或在不同的经济，政治和社会环境中存在差异。本研究的目的是民族志研究如何文化图式（即现实和因果关系的共享的想法）的企业家精神不同的文化和物质环境，特别关注的经济，社会和文化行为中使用的价值创造的过程。这项研究将在南非进行？在开普敦大都市区活跃的企业家中，她是西开普省的代表。这是一个特别适合的研究网站，原因有二。首先，虽然南非是非洲大陆最强劲的经济体之一，但由于22年前才结束的种族隔离政权的持久影响，该国仍然遭受高失业率和不平等的困扰。“高影响力创业”的概念，以鼓励新的企业，以减轻失业和贫困，并解决南非？以市场为导向的解决方案的社会经济问题。第二，调查人员自2012年以来一直在该地区进行研究，因此拥有民族志工作所需的当地文化知识，以及利用所需支持所需的专业联系，以少量资金产生重大研究影响。通过参与观察和半结构化访谈，研究人员旨在发现一个或多个文化模式（即，?模式？）在开普敦大都市地区的创业，并了解这些文化模式之间的差异（1）属于不同文化群体的企业家和（2）企业家与不同水平的资源和支持。这项研究的结果将深入了解文化模式和对创业的理解如何在不同的文化环境中变化，以及这如何影响人类对价值的理解。

Entrepreneurship is fundamentally about creating and articulating value through the identification, evaluation, and exploitation of market-based opportunities. However, research is needed to understand how this process unfolds and whether it differs cross-culturally and/or in different economic, political, and social environments, both within the United States and within the broader global economy. This study aims to ethnographically investigate how cultural schemas (i.e. shared ideas of reality and causality) of entrepreneurship differ across cultures and material environments, with specific attention to the economic, social, and cultural behaviors used in the process of value creation. The research will be conducted in South Africa?s Western Cape among active entrepreneurs in the Cape Town metropolitan area. This is a particularly apt research site for two reasons. First, while South Africa is one of the most robust economies on the African continent, the country still suffers from high rates of unemployment and inequality due to the lasting effects of the apartheid regime that ended only 22 years ago. The concept of "high impact entrepreneurship" to encourage new businesses to alleviate unemployment and poverty, and address South Africa?s socio-economic problems with market oriented solutions. Second, the investigators have done research in the region since 2012, and therefore have the local cultural knowledge of the region that is necessary for ethnographic work, as well as the professional contacts necessary to leverage the support needed to make significant research impact with a small amount of funding. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews the researchers aim to discover one or more cultural models (i.e., ?schemas?) of entrepreneurship in the Cape Town metropolitan area, and to understand how these cultural schemas differ among (1) entrepreneurs who belong to different cultural groups and (2) entrepreneurs with differing levels of resources and support. Findings from this research will provide insight into how cultural models and understandings of entrepreneurship vary across different cultural environments, and how this may impact human understandings of value.