When entrepreneurship becomes a national enterprise : the case of the Arab Gulf
Keywords: Education.

Why and how do countries adopt global models for development for their national contexts? And what happens when a widely promoted model for development becomes adopted in an unlikely context? This dissertation examines the process by which a cultural ideology of "entrepreneurship for development" becomes adopted and carried out in an unlikely context: the Arab Gulf. Entrepreneurship has gained increasing attention within international development discourse, being taken for granted as an integral part of the global sustainable development regime by the twenty-first century. Examining international development organizations' documents around entrepreneurship from 1950 to 2019, this dissertation first asserts that entrepreneurship for development moved from an economic to a social frame by the twenty-first century, where entrepreneurship increasingly becomes a way to solve all sorts of development challenges. As the scope of entrepreneurship within international development expands, understanding of who an entrepreneur can be also expands to be inclusive of all people, reflecting a global culture that increasingly emphasizes the role of empowered individuals to contribute towards progress and social change. The global rise of the notion for entrepreneurship for development and a culture that emphasizes the ways that empowered individuals can contribute to development through their entrepreneurial skills and activities have influenced countries around the world, especially those in the Global South, to promote and implement policies and programs for entrepreneurship development. The wealthy, autocratic Arab Gulf states too have jumped on the global bandwagon of entrepreneurship for development, incorporating entrepreneurship into their respective national development agendas. But consider the strangeness of a state-driven hype around entrepreneurship in a rentier, autocratic context such as the Arab Gulf, where production of a strong, entrepreneurial private sector that emphasizes the role of empowered individuals could conflict with rentier governance patterns that strengthen the state's position. Yet, Arab Gulf rulers have articulated entrepreneurship as a way forward and are calling for their citizens, especially their youth, to become entrepreneurs. So then, why and how do the Arab Gulf states incorporate and institutionalize promotion of entrepreneurship as a part of their national development narrative? How do top-down efforts to foster local, national entrepreneurship influence the ways entrepreneurship support organizations, who function as intermediaries between entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurship ecosystem, view their organizational purposes and act? How do entrepreneurship development efforts in the Arab Gulf states influence the lived experiences of entrepreneurs themselves? Drawing upon analysis of Arab Gulf national development documents, speeches of Gulf rulers, and observing when and how organizations within the entrepreneurship ecosystem became founded, I illustrate how the Arab Gulf rulers utilize rhetoric and founding of organizations to introduce and institutionalize entrepreneurship as a part of their national development narrative. In doing so, this dissertation argues that Arab Gulf rulers are working to foster an entrepreneurial citizenry, shifting Gulf development patterns from that of patron-client relations to that of shared responsibility. However, state efforts are insufficient to foster local entrepreneurship in an emerging, nascent ecosystem. In fact, the role of intermediary organizations, i.e., entrepreneurship support organizations such as incubators and accelerators, play a significant role in structuring entrepreneurship ecosystems and fostering entrepreneurial activities. I proceeds to examine how entrepreneurship support organizations in Arab Gulf states navigate and enact a top-down entrepreneurship ecosystem amidst an institutional and structural environment that makes cultivation of local, national entrepreneurship challenging. I find that Arab Gulf entrepreneurship support organizations reframe their purposes to culture and mindset shifting towards entrepreneurship, looking to the number of training programs delivered and participants as measures of success over the number of startups launched. Additionally, these organizations do not limit their participant pool to local, national populations but open their programs for all in the effort to fill the gap with globally sourced talent. From the organizations' perspective, they are able to legitimate themselves and find meaning in their work by linking their theory of action to contributing to the national development narratives that place entrepreneurship as a way forward. The organizations' focus on shifting mindsets and attracting global talent to launch high-growth startup activities, however, result in a situation where young, aspiring local entrepreneurs who grew up with the national narrative around entrepreneurship development have to reckon with a reality of an entrepreneurship ecosystem that does not seem to deliver the seeming promises of the state and organizations to support them in their endeavors to launch entrepreneurial ventures. Drawing upon interviews with young, early-stage entrepreneurs and observations of a university-based accelerator, I find that seed accelerator programs become a place of reckoning for early-stage local entrepreneurs, as they find that programs for them do not receive as much staff attention and do not have access to key networking and funding opportunities compared to other programs that are targeted at a more global and mature entrepreneur audience. Furthermore, participation in acceleration programs also becomes a place where local youth experiences diverge greatly according to nationality. Long-term residents of the Arab Gulf states who consider the Gulf their home find that opportunities for them to engage in entrepreneurial activities locally are limited and that it is almost impossible for them to succeed as an early-stage local entrepreneur unless they have national partners. This is reflective of the larger socioeconomic structures of the Arab Gulf that excludes and distances local, non-national populations. The national youth find a gap in their expectations, often being surprised that they face barriers and are unable to access funding or resources they thought they would have access to despite their national status. This leads to a sense of disillusionment around the promise and hype of entrepreneurship among local youth--the demographic population in which the Gulf states have promoted entrepreneurship the most.