Relationship between Uncertainty Avoidance Culture, Entrepreneurial Activity and Economic Development

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 Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 150 ( 2014 ) 908 – 916 
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
1877-0428 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license 
(
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
).
Peer-review under responsibility of the International Strategic Management Conference.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.09.100 
ScienceDirect
10
th
International Strategic Management Conference 
Relationship between Uncertainty Avoidance Culture, 
Entrepreneurial Activity and Economic Development 
Yasemin Hanc
ı
o
ğ
lu
a*
, Ülkühan Bike Do
ğ
an
b
, 
Ş
ükran S
ı
rk
ı
nt
ı
o
ğ
lu Y
ı
ld
ı
r
ı
m
c
a,b,c
Ankara University, Ankara,06560, Turkey 
Abstract 
The aim of this study is to observe uncertainty avoidance as an important national cultural dimension and to analyze uncertainty 
avoidance effect on "Total Entrepreneurial Activity". Total entrepreneurial activity measures the level of the economic development 
and entrepreneurship. The relationship between uncertainty avoidance, entrepreneurship and economic development was analyzed 
by three hypothesises. Correlational regression analysis in SPSS was used, and as a result of analysis, it has been found that a 
country’
economic development level (GDPPC) influence its uncertainty avoidance level and the total entrepreneurial activity 
(TEA)rate.
*
Corresponding author. Tel.:[phone]; fax:[phone]. 
E-mail address 
: [e-mail] 
1.
 
Introduction 
Entrepreneurship involves a great diversity of contexts and factors as being a complicated phenomenon. Economic 
growth has been affected by entrepreneurship in various forms. Entering markets with new products or production 
methods enable entrepreneurs to present valuable innovations (Acs and Audretsch, 2003; Steel et al. 2005). 
Beugelsdijk (2007) affirms that personality characteristics, organizational knowledge, social networks, family, the 
economic environment and culture all affect the entrepreneurship behavior. 
Entrepreneurship activities, which are brought to market by innovative products, are essential components of 
economic growth in developed economies (Austretch, 2004; 
O’Gorman and Fitzsimons, 2007).
Global 
entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) has been used 
to compare 57 countries’ entrepreneurship level.
In this study, we examine uncertainty avoidance, total entrepreneurial activity and economic development at the 
country level. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) gives us older and newer data. GEM involves Total 
Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rate. TEA evaluates the rate of burgeoning (nascent) entrepreneurs and young 
enterprises for a range of countries. Wennekerset. al. (2005) define the rate of nascent entrepreneurship as the number 
of people actively involved in attempting to start a new business. Economic development is defined as 
“
per capita 
income
”
or as 
“
innovative capacity
”
by same researchers.
Keywords:
Uncertainty Avoidance, Entrepreneurship, Economic Development 
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license 
(
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
).
Peer-review under responsibility of the International Strategic Management Conference.

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909
 Yasemin Hancıo
ğ
lu et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 150 ( 2014 ) 908 – 916 
This study begins by a literature review of entrepreneurship, economic development and Hofstede’s cultural 
dimensions. Then, development of hypotheses, research methodology, research model and results are given. At the 
end, results are being argued.