This study is about entrepreneurial identity and how it can be taught, adding here a cross-cultural perspective. We believe there are both universal and country-specific nuances to working as an entrepreneur. National cultures are in a continual process of flux, people living in them are bi-or multicultural, bi-or multilingual and live and move across national boundaries. Many people training to become entrepreneurs are born multinational with more than one national identity. Our question is how entrepreneurial studies are coping with this multinational perspective, and what kind of research is needed in the future. Data used in this study consists of earlier studies including research into identity, entrepreneurship education and cross-cultural issues.
Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education involves building a personal entrepreneurial identity. Overall, identity and self refers to a person’s own idea of who she or he is 1. Identity stands at the intersection of self-perception and the perception of others, and it is a relational concept and situated in the cultural context. Individual identity is also created by society, by language, values and institutions, thus making it a socially constructed concept. As noted by Czarniawska 2, human beings are social constructors, and organizations are social constructions. The professional identity of managers has to do with the cultural context she or he connects to and with the social groups in society that she or he professionally relates to. This creates a kind of mind-set in the course of lifelong schooling. Economic society develops more and more closely with the rest of the society, and management and entrepreneurship education should equip students with the abilities necessary for this interaction
According to Hogg and Terry 3, social identity is an integrated perspective on the relationship between self-concept and group behavior. Tajfel 4 defines social identity as the individual’s knowledge that she or he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance coming from this group membership. Social identity is linked with organizational and individual concepts, and therefore, plays an essential role in actions and behavior. Hall 5 underlines the paradigms of identity research that emphasize it either as the stable content of one’s personality and mind, or as a continuous process one is going through. Seen as the latter, identity is conscious in terms of the manner in which the individual understands and deals with his or her ‘self’.
The concepts of opinion, memory and self-awareness are important in understanding how individuals achieve a modern identity that is independent of other people’s reactions. Self-narratives occupy a central place in such a process. A university education provides students with special knowledge, skills and behaviors, but it is also a way of shaping and reshaping their individual identities. The processes by which identities are promoted are relevant, and so are the adopted pedagogical solutions. In addition, there are special needs arising from the business context.
Social capital, based on social networks and trust-based relationships, is something that develops in society. This capital is meaningful for any society and is also country-specific, built using the history and social memory of the society. This forms a bridge between entrepreneurship at the individual and societal level, showing its multi-level importance.
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