In South Korea, the saying goes that “to be an entrepreneur you have to kill two women – your mother and your future wife”. In South Korea, young male entrepreneurs would shame their mothers by not pursuing a professional career, such as doctor or lawyer, or working for a top chaebol – meaning conglomerate, such as Samsung and LG. By being an entrepreneur, a future wife would also suffer from shame, and the financial repercussions that come from this riskier lifestyle. For policy scientists who study how and why culture is “sticky”, we ask ourselves what governments can do to effect a seismic shift in favour of entrepreneurial behaviour. In the Korean case, could policy help to make it okay to tell your mother that you are going to be an entrepreneur? Since the 1990s, the Singaporean government has used the rubric of turning its highly-trained “engineers into entrepreneurs”. The aim has been to develop a more creative risk-taking culture. In the 21st century, governments around the globe have launched efforts to increase “technopreneurship”. In doing so, they hope to emulate the spectacular rise of Israel as the “startup nation” or the ephemeral success of Silicon Valley. In the knowledge-based economy, innovation and entrepreneurship, and the confluence of the two, are thought to be essential to driving economic growth and job creation. The objective is increasingly one of “inclusive innovation”, that includes underrepresented groups – women, minorities, people with disabilities, the young, the old – in the process of innovation or technological innovation that addresses social issues, such as technologies that can improve agricultural productivity. Aside from policies for promoting science and technology, such as R&D spending, governments deploy policies aimed at nudging cultural change towards the venture activities emblematic of Silicon Valley and the startup nation. In the UK’s recently published “industrial strategy”, there are frequent references to supporting “creative and innovative businesses” and entrepreneurs. Government initiatives have helped to import entrepreneurial talent and create a buzz of entrepreneurial activity. Startup Chile is a good example. In 2010 the Chilean Economic Development Agency launched Startup Chile to tempt world-class entrepreneurs to build their businesses in the capital, Santiago. The program offers mentoring, networking and tax rebates to selected entrepreneurs. In a forthcoming article in Asian Studies Review, Ramon Pacheco Pardo, King’s College London, and I share our findings of how the Korean government’s Creative Economy Action Plan, launched in 2013, has effected cultural, if not economic, change. The plan was originated…
Can governments turn engineers into entrepreneurs?
Apr 24, 2018 •
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