Small business in developing economies: A study of entrepreneurship in Nepal

The role of entrepreneurship in economic growth of a country is often accepted as a truism. Scholars are also in agreement that there is a need to adjust development programs to local need. Thus, there is a need to study entrepreneurship in the cultural context. Fairbairn (1988), based on his Pacific experience, argued that Schumpeter’s concept of the innovating entrepreneur appears to have a limited value in understanding entrepreneurship in many developing countries where the entrepreneurial ask lies in applying, modifying, and adapting existing knowledge rather than in implementing ideas based on new discoveries. He further noted that large closely integrated families or kinship groups continue to persist in many developing countries, which means that the focus should be on the family as entrepreneurial unit rather than on the individual. Peterson (1988) categorically states that ’entrepreneurship’s true believers often fail to appreciate the degree to which effective entrepreneurship is enmeshed with culture’ and that ’gradually it is becoming clear that each country/culture must develop its own brand of entrepreneurship and raise its own champions to promote entrepreneurial behavior that fits the prevailing societal mores’. There has been some research examining entrepreneurship in its cultural context in Norway and Ireland (Hornaday, 1986; Hisrich, 1988). However, there is a dearth of coverage of Asian entrepreneurs. It is in this context that the present survey of Nepali entrepreneurs was carried out.