Multiculturalism and Entrepreneurial Engagement Levels Among Early-Stage Firms

This paper has as objective to identify the determinants of opportunity recognition among early-stage firms in a multicultural environment. Given that most research works agreed that, individuals‟ locus of control, need for achievement, entrepreneurial alertness and risk tolerance permit the acquisition of knowledge; the knowledge spill-over theory holds that acquired knowledge still remains potentially viable for the recognition of more entrepreneurial opportunities. The independent variables of this study consist of; general culture awareness, multicultural efficacy, multi fluency, acceptance, broad role repertoire and groundedness. To obtain data for the study, a questionnaire was administered to 120 respondents‟owner-managers of micro and small early-stage enterprises and the ordered probit model was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that entrepreneurial alertness is a major determinant factor for increasing the zeal to acquire multicultural competencies. Also, general culture awareness, multi fluency, multicultural efficacy and broad role repertoire prove their existential effect though having a relative meaning or lesser degree of importance on the recognition of more entrepreneurial opportunities. This confirm the positive contribution that multicultural competencies have on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. From our findings, we recommend that owner-managers of young businesses at early-stage should develop their existing knowledge in business operations through acquiring multicultural competencies. This will help increase the effectiveness of growth expectations for their young businesses through the recognition of more potential entrepreneurial opportunities.