Innovation propensity and entrepreneurial characteristics amongst Saudis

Abstract

The fields of research investigating the economy, innovation and entrepreneurship have often ignored the impacts of religion and culture. More specifically, describing the impacts of religion on individuals and how religion effects the characteristics of entrepreneurs deserve scholarly consideration. Therefore, this study aims to scrutinise the influence of the religion Islam on innovation propensity and number of entrepreneurial characteristics, including risk-taking propensity self-efficacy, and internal locus of control, in the context of one of the dominant Islamic countries, Saudi Arabia. The research follows on from literature that links religion, economy and entrepreneurial characteristics. Using the institutional theory, this research consists of three papers that examine three areas concerning innovation and entrepreneurship in an Islamic society. The first paper examines the relationship between Islamic religiosity and innovation propensity using the three institutional theory dimensions of Islam: normative, cognitive and regulative. The second paper extends this work by examining whether gender might influence this relationship and shows the influence of Islamic religiosity on both men’s and women's innovation. The third paper examines two aspects. First, it explores the influence of Islamic religiosity on the three entrepreneurial characteristics (risk-taking, self-efficacy and internal locus control). Secondly, it examines the differences in these entrepreneurial characteristics between Muslim entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. The three papers utilised a quantitative approach to inspect data obtained by questionnaires sent to Saudi Muslim people. The current study has employed Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and Logistic (Logit) regression to test the research hypotheses. The three papers found a positive impact of Islamic religiosity on innovation propensity and a positive impact of Islamic religiosity on both men’s and women's innovation. However, it showed that Muslim men are more likely to demonstrate innovation propensity than Muslim women. In addition, the third paper on this study showed a positive effect of Islamic religiosity on the three entrepreneurial characteristics under investigation. The overall research offers a number of contributions, as well as considering practical implications by providing a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between Islam and the entrepreneurial characteristics, within a context that has previously lacked full scholarly attention and it reveals new insights at the junction of the religion Islam, innovation and entrepreneurship.
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This thesis made a number of contributions to the understanding of the relationship between, innovation, entrepreneurship and religiosity. It provided a multi-layered explanation for understanding this relationship and showed new results that were not mentioned before as the presence of the impact of Islam on attitudes towards innovation and entrepreneurship through religious texts and explained how Islam shapes the differences between men and women in its creation. It showed the impact of Islam on some entrepreneurial characteristics such as taking risks, self-efficacy, and internal control, and how Islam shapes the differences between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs in these entrepreneurial characteristics.

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ORCID for Jagannadha Pawan Tamvada: orcid.org/0000-0002-1225-3174

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