Creative based entrepreneurship: The impact of acculturation on opportunity engagement: The case of recent Mexican immigrants to the United States.

摘要

Opportunity recognition is a fundamental process of entrepreneurship. It is a continuum creative product that goes from the conception of an idea to its transformation into a process of starting and operating a business (Dimov 2007). Its importance comes from the consideration not only of the entrepreneur, but also of the context where he or she operates, the social context where the individual discusses, and evaluates his/her ideas. One of the more neglected aspects of research regarding creative opportunity recognition is the context, both cultural and social, where this opportunity is created and recognized. Among several studies that have examined this aspect of the entrepreneurial process, one has focus in making propositions about creative perspective based entrepreneurship and it is the work by Dimov (2007). Dimov (2007) advanced three propositions about creative entrepreneurship which have been partially validated. This dissertation focuses on the second proposition, which discusses how the immediate context where the entrepreneur shapes his or her thinking and engaging with the individual's knowledge and learning abilities. Based on this proposition, this dissertation looks at one specific context, that of Mexican immigrants in The United States of America and examines the effects of acculturation on potential entrepreneurship opportunity.;The preliminary data analysis shows initial support for the hypothesized relationship between acculturation and engagement in a potential opportunity of entrepreneurship. Data also shows a strong correlation between entrepreneurship intent and other variables such as unemployment and number of community connections in the host country (USA in this case). Other results include a correlation between language preference and community relations, but not with entrepreneurship activity.;Limitation of the research and future potential research is also included in this dissertation.