In South Korea, the saying goes that “to be an entrepreneur you have to kill two women – your mother and your future wife”. In South Korea, young male entrepreneurs would shame their mothers by not pursuing a professional career, such as doctor or lawyer, or working for a top chaebol – meaning conglomerate, such as Samsung and LG. By being an entrepreneur, a future wife would also suffer from shame, and the financial repercussions that come from this riskier lifestyle.
For policy scientists who study how and why culture is “sticky”, we ask ourselves what governments can do to effect a seismic shift in favour of entrepreneurial behaviour. In the Korean case, could policy help to make it okay to tell your mother that you are going to be an entrepreneur?
Since the 1990s, the Singaporean government has used the rubric of turning its highly-trained “engineers into entrepreneurs”. The aim has been to develop a more creative risk-taking culture. In the 21st century, governments around the globe have launched efforts to increase “technopreneurship”. In doing so, they hope to emulate the spectacular rise of Israel as the “startup nation” or the ephemeral success of Silicon Valley. In the knowledge-based economy, innovation and entrepreneurship, and the confluence of the two, are thought to be essential to driving economic growth and job creation.
The objective is increasingly one of “inclusive innovation”, that includes underrepresented groups – women, minorities, people with disabilities, the young, the old – in the process of innovation or technological innovation that addresses social issues, such as technologies that can improve agricultural productivity.
Aside from policies for promoting science and technology, such as R&D spending, governments deploy policies aimed at nudging cultural change towards the venture activities emblematic of Silicon Valley and the startup nation. In the UK’s recently published “industrial strategy”, there are frequent references to supporting “creative and innovative businesses” and entrepreneurs.
Government initiatives have helped to import entrepreneurial talent and create a buzz of entrepreneurial activity. Startup Chile is a good example. In 2010 the Chilean Economic Development Agency launched Startup Chile to tempt world-class entrepreneurs to build their businesses in the capital, Santiago. The program offers mentoring, networking and tax rebates to selected entrepreneurs.
In a forthcoming article in Asian Studies Review, Ramon Pacheco Pardo, King’s College London, and I share our findings of how the Korean government’s Creative Economy Action Plan, launched in 2013, has effected cultural, if not economic, change. The plan was originated by President Park Guen-hye – the daughter of former president General Park Chung-hee whose government oversaw Korea’s modernising “miracle on the Han River”. Park Guen-hye asserted that Korea would achieve its second miracle through a reorientation towards entrepreneurial creative economy activities, and by extension away from reliance on chaebol activities. She said: “Economic revitalisation is going to be propelled by a creative economy and economic democratisation.”
A range of policies were implemented – 18 centres for creative economy and Innovation were launched, each with a chaebol as corporate partner. A series of funding initiatives followed to provide more diverse financing to entrepreneurs and startups. Regulatory reforms reduced barriers to M&As in the technology sector. The Ministry of Science in 2014 began investing $1.5bn in local telecoms to develop the world’s first national 5G network. In 2016, K-Startup Grand Challenge – for me, a nod to Startup Chile – was launched to attract international startup teams to Seoul’s Pangyo Techno Valley, offering help with visas and mentoring, and facilitating introductions to relevant chaebols.
Through three rounds of online surveys and personal interviews with members of the budding entrepreneurial ecosystem in Korea between the summers of 2016 and 2017, we found the plan had increased the quality of would-be entrepreneurs through greater business plan, pitching and other functional skills; increased the finance available for startups, so it is easier to build a business in 2017 than it was in 2013; and increased the number of entrepreneurs. This third finding is perhaps the most interesting. We pushed to understand the causal underpinnings – why are there more entrepreneurs in Korea now? Is it that there is more money, less bureaucratic tape, and greater tax incentives? Or is it now somehow more socially acceptable or attractive to be an entrepreneur?
The resounding answer is that the plan has made entrepreneurship and creative business ideas mainstream. It has normalised technopreneurship such that it is increasingly acceptable for young Koreans to tell mum they are not going to work for Samsung. The takeaway for us is that placing technopreneurship front and centre – in terms of public mindshare and not only in disparate policies – can make a start towards turning society’s engineers into entrepreneurs – or at least eroding the predisposition that they will be killing their mum by starting their own high-tech business. To promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, the state has a necessary role as a venture capital state.
