ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In: Public opinion quarterly: journal of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Volume 22, Issue 3, p. 391-396

Abstract

Entrepreneurship (emphasizing risk bearing, innovation, manag & org) has concerned economists who explain the growth process in the Western world. This theory is inapplicable to the Middle East (ME) & other unindustrialized countries & demonstrated by several hundred interviews with Middle Eastern businessmen & landlords, & by a study of their firms & org's. Several conclusions have resulted from these interviews: the ME'er is capable of becoming a risk taker & manager; innovation will not play the role in the ME that it did in the West; &, the most potent force stimulating entrepreneurial activity is minority status. No thesis can yet be formulated concerning the role of religion in shaping econ activity & the nature of enterprise: it does seem to be important since entrepreneurial activity has been stimulated by the funds need for the trip to Mecca, by fragmentation of estates by Islam inheritance laws, & the adaptation of practice & theology to the requirements of an expanding capitalism. The onslaught of the West on the ME creates entrepreneurs who are driven to investment by fear & uncertainty of the impact of educ, the nationalism of the Mc, efficient taxation, etc. Conversely, the prejudice against trade which results in turning to land ownership is continued. The entrepreneur is an indicator of soc & econ change in the ME whose response depends on his own inheritance in addition to the Western influences. J. D. Twight.