Entrepreneur culture and entrepreneur activities, symbiotic developments in Chinese societies

In this paper, we study the interactions between entrepreneur culture and entrepreneur activities by focusing on the evolution of entrepreneurship among Oriental Chinese societies. It is argued that the evolutions of entrepreneurship at the societal level can be considered mainly institutional processes, i.e., the processes of systematic changes shaped by social institutions, rather than the blind or random processes suggested by the BVSR dogma from Donald T. Campbell. However, the current institutional theory has some difficulties in explaining this evolution because both entrepreneur culture and entrepreneur activities are evolving. In other words, while the culture influences entrepreneur activities, the culture itself is also changing. To explain these processes, we propose an institutional symbiosis perspective based on research findings from modern biology research. The paper concludes with a discussion on implications of this new perspective for the research and practice of entrepreneurship.