Entrepreneurship and Global Cities

Diversity, Opportunity and Cosmopolitanism

Nikolai Mouraviev, Nada K. Kakabadse, Nikolai Mouraviev, Nada K. Kakabadse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429638909
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Activité entrepreneuriale

Global cities with a largely cosmopolitan environment, such as Auckland, Berlin, Dubai, London, New York, Shanghai or Singapore, are successfully developing and attracting entrepreneurs from all over the world. This book elucidates the policy approaches related to the formation of the cosmopolitan environment that supports entrepreneurship in large urban areas. The book's core theme is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and entrepreneurship, with the latter viewed as a key driver of economic growth, sustainability and prosperity. The book argues that successful entrepreneurship rests on the two pillars of the cosmopolitan environment: diversity and the creation of business opportunities. In contrast to globalisation's standardised solutions in policy, commerce, banking and social issues, cosmopolitanism allows individualised value and solutions, whereby actors—entrepreneurs, businesses, families, interest groups, governments, non-governmental organisations and virtual communities—enjoy diversity as a norm.

The book pays special attention to under-researched topics, such as threats to sustainability in cosmopolitan cities; why cosmopolitan cities attract immigrants with a highly independent mindset; the impact of religious norms on female and male entrepreneurs; varying experiences of local and expatriate entrepreneurs; and the diff erences in doing business by female entrepreneurs, stemming from their nationalities and residence status. The book off ers conceptual insights into the enablers of entrepreneurship in cosmopolitan cities and urban governance, complemented by case studies based on fi eldwork in Dubai, Hamburg, Istanbul, Karachi, Kyiv, London, Moscow and Tel Aviv. The book will appeal to those who study or teach cosmopolitanism, globalisation or urban development concepts, and those professionals who are considering the possibility of doing business or working as an expatriate in a cosmopolitan city.

1 Introduction

Toward a Deeper Conceptualisation of Cosmopolitanism in Global Cities

Nikolai Mouraviev and Nada K. Kakabadse

This book intends to contribute to a deeper conceptualisation of the origins, manifestations and limitations of cosmopolitanism in global cities. In contrast to globalisation’s standardised solutions in policy, commerce, banking and social issues, cosmopolitanism allows individualised value and solutions, whereby actors—entrepreneurs, businesses, families, interest groups, governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and virtual communities—enjoy diversity as a norm (Dobson, 2005; Woodward et al., 2008; Brett and Moran, 2011). Paying respect to differences and being fully aware of interdependence allows actors to create a governance framework that supports diversity for the common good. Global cities with a largely cosmopolitan environment, such as Auckland, Berlin, Dubai, Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, New York, Shanghai or Singapore, are successfully developing and attracting entrepreneurs from all over the world (Davidson, 2008). In times of economic downturn, these cities demonstrate remarkable resilience to downward trends in their nation’s economy, which suggests that their entrepreneurship, underpinned by a different philosophy, is highly sustainable (Mouraviev and Kakabadse, 2016). Naturally, many active entrepreneurs are ambitious and creative individuals who constantly look for opportunities to launch or expand their businesses. They make effective use of diversity that global cities offer and identify these opportunities for themselves and for others.

The book aims to investigate many elements of the global cities’ environment, how it is formed, what actors shape it and how urban governing bodies, together with many other stakeholders, develop it. Within the urban environment, entrepreneurship plays a critical role in providing jobs and income, and contributing to economic durability of urban areas. Although entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial culture are heavily dependent on legal and regulatory frameworks, as well as on local traditions, customer behaviour, availability of financing and other infrastructure components, within global cities, entrepreneurship itself shapes the urban environment and makes it increasingly appealing for business and innovation. Furthermore, global cities present opportunities for female entrepreneurship and for the active engagement of minorities, as well as for a range of diverse ethnic groups (Berger and Kuckertz, 2016; Araujo, 2017). The book shows multiple manifestations of the relationship between cities’ cosmopolitan environment and entrepreneurship and how creative enterprise enables economic growth.

The book pays special attention to under-researched topics that form its main themes, including:

• The concept of power that effectively advances a government’s own interests by supporting entrepreneurship in global cities;
• Vulnerabilities (i.e. threats to sustainability) in cosmopolitan cities;
• Why cosmopolitan cities attract immigrants with a highly independent mindset;
• Varying experiences of local and expatriate entrepreneurs;
• The differences in doing business by female entrepreneurs, stemming from their nationality and residence status;
• The impact of a cosmopolitan environment on female entrepreneurs’ personal lives and their families; and
• The roles of various actors in forming cosmopolitan environments and shaping policies for entrepreneurship.

What is the book’s main argument? Keeping in mind that sustainable entrepreneurship in global cities is key for ensuring their prosperity, the book argues that successful entrepreneurship rests on the two pillars of the cosmopolitan environment: diversity and the creation of business opportunities. These two elements have become norms for global cities and they require ongoing support by the urban governing bodies. Diversity has become a standard that is valued, respected and promoted by all, from local power holders and business elites to local and foreign workers. Diversity is supported by entrepreneurs from across the globe who create the cosmopolitan environment of urban areas and often move from one global city to another, and at the same time actively contribute to their economic growth and diversity. In addition, urban governing bodies make the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities a top priority and actively further entrepreneurship as a critical enabler of sustainable economic development and a driver of prosperity in cosmopolitan cities. To support its principal argument—that global cities rely on openness, diversity and the generation of opportunities—the book offers conceptual insights into the enablers of entrepreneurship in cosmopolitan cities, complemented by case studies.

What makes this book special? Within a broad theme of cosmopolitanism, this book focuses exclusively on entrepreneurship within the context of large urban areas. The book includes a discussion that focuses on the cosmopolitan environment of a city, from policy and governance perspectives, based on the premise that the cosmopolitan environment has been purposely shaped by governments in selected metropolitan areas. In addition, the book discusses gender issues, including the experiences of men and women, and local vs. expatriate women doing business in cosmopolitan cities. Furthermore, the book offers insights into Eastern European cities that most readers would not instantly associate with cosmopolitanism: Moscow and Kyiv. Although their environments are not yet fully open and supportive of entrepreneurship, and these cities do not fully embed and support diversity as a norm, the book highlights growing cosmopolitanism as an emergent trend that is likely to increasingly strengthen in the future. Other cities that are discussed in detail include those that often capture the readers’ attention: Dubai and London. Cities that are less known as cosmopolitan offer opportunities for, perhaps, even more interesting investigation. In this book, these are Hamburg, Istanbul, Karachi and Tel Aviv. The choices were driven by the need to ensure novelty as these cities are less likely to appear on the top of a list of cosmopolitan cities. Therefore, the book’s special features include its focus on entrepreneurship and a novel outlook on under-researched topics, such as gender differences in entrepreneurship, as well as investigation of under-researched cosmopolitan cities.

To better understand issues related to the nature and traits of global cities and investigate how their features influence creative business practices, the book is divided in four parts. Part I elucidates the cosmopolitan environment. It first discusses the theoretical foundations of cosmopolitanism and conceptualises cosmopolitanism drivers from the power perspective. It then investigates the motivations of those who move to global cities. Using case studies of Tel Aviv, Istanbul and London, Part I demonstrates the impact of the cosmopolitan environment on entrepreneurship as a key driving force of urban economic growth. Part II investigates female entrepreneurship in global cities. By offering case studies of Dubai and Karachi, it looks at the experience of women launching and running their enterprises, identifies what facilitates and what impedes their business and highlights the impact that entrepreneurship has on women’s personal and professional lives. Part III discusses emergent cosmopolitanism in Eastern Europe by looking at two major ex-Soviet cities: Moscow and Kyiv. Part IV compares and contrasts the urban, cosmopolitan environments elucidated in the book and offers conclusions. This part also draws insights into policy and governance in global cities by discussing implications for urban policy making and management.

For whom is this book? Academics, students and practitioners may equally benefit from the blend of chapters (conceptual plus practice oriented) that reinforces the book’s main argument that openness to all, equality, diversity and the creation of business opportunities should be adopted by the global cities’ governing bodies as critically important elements of their policy and governance. To this end, this edited collection provides a novel outlook at global cities and explains how their cosmopolitan environment feeds entrepreneurship from which the cities derive substantial benefits. This is likely to be of interest to readers that live in or plan to move to global cities, as well as all those who are interested in cosmopolitanism and, particularly, in its links to entrepreneurship. In addition, an emergent dimension of global cities’ research is female entrepreneurship, and this book is one of the first attempts to capture women’s experiences in starting and managing their businesses in the specific context shaped by cosmopolitanism, as well as to conceptualise how women’s cosmopolitan orientation impacts their lives. This part of the book may attract readers interested in gaining insights into the gender differences in entrepreneurship and how they manifest themselves in the urban cosmopolitan environment.

Practitioners may find the book useful as it highlights an array of real-life situations and problems that urban governments, female and male entrepreneurs and other local residents encounter in the cosmopolitan environment. The analysis of assumptions, perceptions, concerns and aspirations of cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, followed by critical appraisal, will be of interest to readers across the globe who are entrepreneurs themselves. The book will allow them to compare and contrast the narratives with their own understanding and experience of global cities. Practitioners may identify differences and commonalities regarding how the urban environment supports entrepreneurship in their place of residence: this might be helpful for studying best practice or borrowing from the experience of other urban areas.

Researchers and students may also benefit from reading this book, as the book offers insights into a concept of cosmopolitanism that are not yet commonly shared. The book applies the concept of cosmopolitanism mainly to cities, rather than to individuals, and argues that the global cities’ prosperity is directly linked to the open and diverse environment that cherishes entrepreneurship. Cities’ prosperity and resilience stem from sustainable entrepreneurship supported by a cosmopolitan environment. By reading this book, academics and students may identify commonalities and differences between the global cities in how governance could (or should) shape the urban environment. Readers will have the opportunity to compare a broad range of traits and issues and draw their own insights from the discussion of cosmopolitan cities, the opportunities they provide and the challenges they pose to entrepreneurs and city governments.

In summary, this book offers a discussion that integrates the features of the cosmopolitan environment with the experience of local and expatriate entrepreneurs, and links entrepreneurship with policy and governance in large urban areas. This allows the authors to show cosmopolitanism in action, and to depart from merely theoretical considerations. The discussion of cosmopolitanism’s theoretical underpinnings and entrepreneurial practice in global cities, the investigation of the role local authorities play in shaping and promoting enterprise culture and understanding varying implications of cosmopolitanism from a gender perspective create a unique blend of practice and theory that may attract a wide spectrum of readers who are interested in global cities, cosmopolitanism and entrepreneurship.

References

Araujo, N. (2017). Engendering cosmopolitanism: Gendered narratives of instability and agency. Women’s Studies International Forum. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2017.06.001. Accessed 25 January 2019.

Berger, E. S. and Kuckertz, A. (2016). Female entrepreneurship in start-up ecosystems worldwide. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), 5163–5168.

Brett, J. and Moran, A. (2011). Cosmopolitan nationalism: Ordinary people making sense of diversity. Journal of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, 17(1), 188–206.

Davidson, M. D. (2008). Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success. New York: Columbia University Press.

Dobson, A. (2005). Globalisation, cosmopolitanism and the environment. International Relations, 19, 259–273.

Mouraviev, N. and Kakabadse, N. (2016). Conceptualising cosmopolitanism and entrepreneurship through the lens of the three-dimensional theory of power. Society and Business Review, 11(3), 242–256.

Woodward, I., Skrbis, Z. and Bean, C. (2008). Attitudes towards globalisation and cosmopolitanism: Cultural diversity, personal consumption and the national economy. The British Journal of Sociology, 59(2), 207–226.

Part I
The Cosmopolitan Environment

Traits, Challenges and Trends

2 Sustainable Urban Growth and the Cosmopolitan Environment

The Role of Power in Promoting Diversity, Opportunities and Entrepreneurship

Nikolai Mouraviev and Nada K. Kakabadse

Introduction

Political, economic, business and social processes in nations worldwide are influenced both by globalisation processes and growing cosmopolitanism. Whilst globalisation should be viewed as more than simply an ability to engage in transactions across national borders (Spring, 2008), it is a process that has at least two dimensions: (a) external influences and (b) internal responses (Douglass, 2005). In globalisation processes, standardisation (i.e. standardised deployment of readily available solutions in politics, economics, commerce, banking, education, social structures and cultural approaches) prevails over nation-specific, contextually and culturally driven choices (Enders, 2004). In globalisation, worldwide trends dominate over locally rooted processes.

In contrast to globalisation, cosmopolitanism allows individual values and individualised solutions, whilst actors including citizens, businesses, interest groups, governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have a general agreement regarding diversity as a norm (Woodward et al., 2008). Respecting the differences and being fully aware of interdependence allows actors to create governance of diversity (Appiah, 2006). Globalisation and cosmopolitanism each have their own drivers and underlying dynamics. Whilst globalisation is often driven by external impulses complemented by domestic policies, this chapter intends to contribute to a deeper conceptualisation of cosmopolitanism by analysing cities that have formed, or are forming, an environment that matches the cosmopolitanism’ principal feature, i.e. governance of diversity for the common good. The chapter highlights the social norms and social forms that are critical for cosmopolitan cities and that cities create and benefit from.

Around the world, the cities and regions have shown significant variation in advancing entrepreneurship, promoting growth, and ensuring economic, social and environmental sustainability. Whilst city governments are keen, typically, on attracting investment, enhancing private enterprise and fostering economic growth, their success rates are different: some exhibit sustainable growth over lengthy periods, whilst the vulnerability of others shows their dependency on macroeconomic trends and changes in these trends. Cities with a largely cosmopolitan environment, such as Auckland, Berlin, Dubai, Edinburgh, Hong Kong, London, New York, Shanghai or Singapore, are s...