Networking and culture in entrepreneurship

Case studies on three diverse cultural groups are used to investigate how culture influences entrepreneurial networks. The concept of a national culture inevitably refers to the dominant culture which fails to address the sub and minority cultures. A resultant void in literature exists that does not provide understanding of the relationship between culture and social networks within entrepreneurial activity. This paper explores social networking across three cultures, (one dominant culture and two minority) allowing the researcher an insight into the cultural differences within three very different entrepreneurial networks. The empirical results reveal that entrepreneurial networking is non-universal, rather it varies among cultures suggesting that entrepreneurial networking differs between entrepreneurs embedded into a dominating culture and entrepreneurs embedded within minority cultures.