Cultural tightness emancipation and venture profitability: An international experience lens

Culture deeply infuses entrepreneurs' psychology, and ultimately the performance of their firms. Drawing on cultural-tightness looseness theory and emergent entrepreneurship research on intercultural cognition, we introduce the concept of cultural tightness emancipation. We examine how culturally tight home contexts can be especially psychologically restrictive for underdog entrepreneurs, with what we term ‘layers of tightness’, such as gender role and family expectations, compounding these dynamics. Drawing on multi-wave data in Nicaragua, we theorize that culturally loosening experiences can aid entrepreneurs in gaining broader perspectives and skills that bolster the profitability of their ventures. Specifically, we probe how time spent living overseas can yield enduring positive effects on founders years later when running their businesses back home. In line with our theorizing, we find support that female entrepreneurs running family businesses in culturally tight Nicaragua benefit considerably more from such cultural tightness emancipation. Implications for research and practice are discussed.