Culture, Religion and Entrepreneurship in the United States: A Regional Perspective

Abstract

This paper critically examines the present state of research into culture as a determinant of entrepreneurship, and concludes that studies that make use of quantitative measurements of culture at a cross-national level have failed to provide clear insights. An alternative model of culture based on religious denomination is proposed, and a pilot study is conducted to prove the viability of such a model at a regional level. The United States was selected for this pilot study as religiosity is relatively high and rising there, whereas it is low and declining in many other (Western) countries that offer similarly extensive data-sets. Data are collected from a number of sources including the American Religious Data Archives and the American Community Survey. Entrepreneurship, a number of its known determinants and mainline Protestantism are analyzed using regression analysis. The results show that there is a significant negative causal relationship between mainline Protestantism and entrepreneurship in the United States, warranting further studies at the regional level.