Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Entrepreneurship should be an electoral focus around the world

Silicon Valley road sign

Other regions of the United States, and other coutnries, have tried to replicate Silicon Valley's success.

gguy44/Getty Images

Pruthi is an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the Lucas College & Graduate School of Business, San Jose State University, and a public voices fellow with The OpEd Project.

With more than 60 countries that are home to around 4.2 billion people holding elections in 2024, voting will take center stage around the world. And while those running for office will undoubtedly focus on economic issues such as jobs, inflation and the cost of health care, all too few will focus on perhaps the most important component of economic success: entrepreneurial activity.


According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, total entrepreneurial activity (the percentage of the adult population that has taken some action towards creating a new business in the past year, or who are owner-managers of an active business less than 42 months old) varies across world economies. Not only does this data vary by country, but also in regions within countries. For example, in the United States, seven of the 10 largest initial public offerings for U.S. venture-backed companies in 2018 originated in California.

Entrepreneurship is the engine of economic development. As per The Guardian, with a per capita gross domestic product of $128,308, residents of Silicon Valley, Calif., out-produce almost every nation on the planet. Half the world’s billionaires live in Silicon Valley; a sizable proportion of the remainder lives just north of the area. Aspects of the external environment such as the prevalence of technology infrastructure or top-class educational and research institutions can aid international entrepreneurs’ location choice in starting new ventures. Thus, it is important to bridge gaps in the underlying conditions to make countries entrepreneurial.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

What else has been done so far?

Recognizing Silicon Valley’s outstanding performance, others have attempted to emulate its success in the United States, the first serious efforts being helmed by a consortium of high-tech companies in New Jersey and Texas in the mid-1960s. Led by top research labs, business leaders decided to build institutions like Stanford University to complement the region’s strong technology bases. However, the lack of collaboration with industry due to the latter’s reluctance to share their best researchers with a university failed to yield the desired outcome.

Governments are working to replicate Silicon Valley outside the United States. According to the World Economic Forum, at least four of GEM's 13 National Entrepreneurial Context Index framework conditions are the direct responsibility of national governments, which can directly support the entrepreneurial process through the provision of resources and investments in research and development.

In Israel, for example, the government succeeded in promoting entrepreneurship by creating a venture capital industry to crowd-in private investments and build one of the most successful high-tech powerhouses outside the United States. However, the top-down formula of selecting a hot industry, building a science park next to a research university, creating a VC pool and providing subsidies for chosen industries in hundreds of other regions across the world has failed to recreate the same magic.

So, what makes a country entrepreneurial?

An environment conducive for innovation includes favorable aspects of the political, economic and socio-cultural landscape. A democratic political system fosters private enterprise and wealth creation whereas a centrally planned communist system hinders it. The level of economic development impacts the motivations for entrepreneurship. Per GEM, an average 35 percent of entrepreneurs in low-income economies are necessity entrepreneurs who start up due to dissatisfaction with, or absence of, conventional work options rather than to exploit an opportunity. Hofstede's dimensions of “national” culture also determine the degree of enterprise. Indeed, professional networks between faculty and industry leaders and the culture of risk-taking and learning from failure have lent Silicon Valley a unique advantage compared to other regional clusters, even within the United States, like Boston.

Notwithstanding some possible generalizations, direct comparisons of the international environment for entrepreneurship are complex. First, each economy has its own profile comprising both enablers as well as challenges. Whereas a strong economy bodes well for Japan, for example, in terms of the availability of support resources for early-stage start-up activity, a collectivist culture that penalizes risk-taking mars entrepreneurial initiative.

Second, the goals of entrepreneurship vary across countries. Whereas innovation in developed economies is often synonymous with technology entrepreneurship, that in developing economies like Asia and Africa is often associated with social innovation. Third, entrepreneurial activity manifests at various levels, especially where external conditions for mainstream enterprise are far from ideal. Whereas independent start-ups are often most studied and analyzed in the West, entrepreneurship in collectivist Asian countries like China assumes the form of large organizations and family businesses.

So, what can be done to make countries entrepreneurial?

First, governments need to recognize that no one size fits all. It is important to examine each national or regional context prior to blindly replicating a foreign ecosystem. Second, while initiatives like establishing research universities or lending financial support to launch new ventures may be necessary, they are not sufficient. Support infrastructure like incubation, social networks, and information and communication technologies are needed to scale up new ventures. Openness to inward and return migration can help attract talent to identify and exploit opportunities and build global networks regardless of geography.

Relatedly, and most critical perhaps, is the need to create a culture conducive for innovation. A culture that questions, rather than accepts, the status quo and rewards, rather than penalizes, risk-taking and experimentation is necessary to instill confidence for new venture creation. Whereas early education can condition mindsets, a lens of equity and diversity in investing and team building can lead to identifying wide-ranging problems and mobilizing a variety of resources to address those problems for making our countries truly entrepreneurial.

Read More

Business professional watching stocks go down.
Getty Images, Bartolome Ozonas

The White House Is Booming, the Boardroom Is Panicking

The Confidence Collapse

Consumer confidence is plummeting—and that was before the latest Wall Street selloffs.

Keep ReadingShow less
Project 2025: Trump Admin Tries to Curb the FTC's Corporate Oversight

The Federal Trade Commission building.

Getty Images, Greggory DiSalvo

Project 2025: Trump Admin Tries to Curb the FTC's Corporate Oversight

In the first few weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump signed a series of controversial executive orders that are designed to exert tight control over 19 federal agencies that were established decades ago by Congress to act independently of the president. Since then, the Trump administration has attempted to methodically remove the independence of the Federal Election Commission, National Labor Relations Board, Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and other agencies.

The latest regulatory agency in the presidential crosshairs is one of the most important: the corporate watchdog Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Just recently, the White House mounted a takeover of the FTC by firing the only two Democratic commissioners on the five-person commission and politicizing its bipartisan regulatory oversight.

Keep ReadingShow less
USA China trade war and American tariffs as opposing cargo freight containers in conflict as an economic and diplomatic dispute over import and exports concept as a 3D illustration.
Are Trump's tariffs good for the economy or will they increase prices?
wildpixel/Getty Images

Just the Facts: United States Vs. China Tariff War


What tariffs did the United States impose on China on April 2nd?

On April 2, 2025, President Donald Trump announced a series of tariffs, including a 10% universal tariff on all imports, with additional country-specific rates. For China, an additional 34% tariff was imposed.

Keep ReadingShow less
Just the Facts:  Has Trump Made Stock Market Volatility Great Again?

A person viewing stock market trends on their phone.

Getty Images, manusapon kasosod

Just the Facts: Has Trump Made Stock Market Volatility Great Again?

Our ongoing series, “Just the Facts,” strives to approach news stories with both an open mind and skepticism, so we may present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, we look to remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces.

Has the stock market been more volatile than usual since Trump was inaugurated this January?

Keep ReadingShow less