ASEAN and Cultural Entrepreneurship

The chapter provides a brief history of ASEAN and the reasons for its establishment. The chapter also includes a brief background on each of its member states their socio-cultural background, political history, and economic growth. While analysing the member states it came to the forefront that there are variations in their level of economic development and socio-cultural characteristics as each member state has a different trajectory to when they became more politically stable which explains the heterogeneity in economic growth amongst member states. Among other things there are socio-cultural differences like variations in literacy levels of the population, poverty rates, unemployment levels, regulatory environment, level of corruption, etc. More the regulations for setting up a business more opportunities for corrupt practices. This gap is wider among the old and the new member states. With COVID-19 (pandemic) the adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), technologies have also accelerated. Failure to resolve these pressing and long-standing socio-cultural challenges will lead to greater economic and political instability. Therefore, with such revolutionary changes it will no longer be sufficient to consider a national policy response, more than ever there is now a need for regional groupings like ASEAN to assist in steering and shaping these historic transformations. Thus, the First Consultative Workshop on the Development of the Integrated Strategy Fourth Industrial Revolution for ASEAN was conducted on November 25, 2020. Beginning with ASEAN’s Consolidated Strategy on the 4IR—would grow more effective with time, with the appropriate technology and structures in place.