Cross-country growth-oriented entrepreneurship: when is a performance-based culture effective?

We pursue why performance-based cultural norms are rendered ineffective in stimulating a subset of growth-oriented entrepreneurship. We propose and test a midrange, contingency-based model receiving strong support in analysis of 267 country-year observations from 66 countries. Results show economic development complements performance-based cultural norms to increase the extent of a country's growth-oriented entrepreneurship; and this complementary effect appears only among those countries with high levels of regulatory simplicity. For policymakers targeting economic growth, our research suggests that policies should create a fertile environment for growth-oriented entrepreneurship to thrive on the established norms within their society. We advise against benchmarking possible approaches against other countries with high levels of growth-oriented entrepreneurship but very different established norms. We hope that our study captures the complexity of the impact of cultural norms on the levels of growth-oriented entrepreneurship among countries.