TY - JOUR
T1 - Belonging, believing, bonding, and behaving: The relationship between religion and business ownership at the country level
AU - Hoogendoorn, Brigitte
AU - Rietveld, Niels
AU - Van Stel, A
PY - 2016/2/22
Y1 - 2016/2/22
N2 - This cross-country study adopts a competing theories approach in which
both a value perspective and a social capital perspective are used to understand the
relation between religion and a country’s business ownership rate. We distinguish
among four dimensions of religion: belonging to a religious denomination, believing
certain religious propositions, bonding to religious practices, and behaving in a religious
manner. An empirical analysis of data from 30 OECD countries with multiple
data points per country covering the period 1984–2010 suggests a positive relationship
between religion and business ownership based on those dimensions that reflect the
internal aspects of religiosity (i.e., believing and behaving). We do not observe a
significant association for those dimensions that reflect more external aspects of
religion (i.e., belonging and bonding). These results suggest that the social capital
perspective prevails the value perspective, at least when internal aspects of religiosity
are concerned.More generally, our study demonstrates the importance of distinguishing
between different dimensions of religion when investigating the link between religion
and entrepreneurship.
AB - This cross-country study adopts a competing theories approach in which
both a value perspective and a social capital perspective are used to understand the
relation between religion and a country’s business ownership rate. We distinguish
among four dimensions of religion: belonging to a religious denomination, believing
certain religious propositions, bonding to religious practices, and behaving in a religious
manner. An empirical analysis of data from 30 OECD countries with multiple
data points per country covering the period 1984–2010 suggests a positive relationship
between religion and business ownership based on those dimensions that reflect the
internal aspects of religiosity (i.e., believing and behaving). We do not observe a
significant association for those dimensions that reflect more external aspects of
religion (i.e., belonging and bonding). These results suggest that the social capital
perspective prevails the value perspective, at least when internal aspects of religiosity
are concerned.More generally, our study demonstrates the importance of distinguishing
between different dimensions of religion when investigating the link between religion
and entrepreneurship.
U2 - 10.1007/s00191-016-0447-7
DO - 10.1007/s00191-016-0447-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 28163391
SN - 0936-9937
VL - 26
SP - 1
EP - 32
JO - Journal of Evolutionary Economics
JF - Journal of Evolutionary Economics
IS - 3
ER -