Home / Lectures / Klaus Weber, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Globalization in action: Templates, tensions and strategies of action in Kenyan technology entrepreneurship

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Klaus Weber, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Description

Semester:

  • Winter 2016

Speakers:

Klaus Weber, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Lecture Time:

Fri, March 11, 2016 @ 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm

Lecture Location:

Room R1240, Ross School of Business

Speaker Webpage(s):

https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/directory/weber_klaus.aspx

Introduced By:

No introduction available.

Abstract

A cultural dimension of economic globalization is the proliferation of seemingly universal templates for economic action. One example is “technology-based entrepreneurship,” which is increasingly presented as a recipe for international development and national competitiveness. But what does it mean to perform technology entrepreneurship? The paper develops a micro- phenomenological answer to this question. The case of the nascent Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Nairobi shows how participants in this sector construct contrasting templates of entrepreneurship that are coded as alternatively global and local. We use ethnographic and semiotic methods to understand the content of these templates, and the approaches that participants use to manage resulting tensions in interacting with each other. Each approach gives rise to unintended consequences that prevent the full resolution of tensions and prompt subsequent action. As a result we present a model of the generative processes that arise locally in the course of globalization.

Recording & Additional Notes

No additional notes available.