Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Cultural Dissonance and Gender Stereotyping in Social Entrepreneurship

The conceptualization and measurement of culture operates under the implicit assumption that cultural characteristics can be equally captured through an assessment of either values, which reflect what is important in society, or practices, which reflect existing behaviors in society. Culture is recognized as one of the primary determinants of social entrepreneurial action, yet empirical examination of the influence of national-level cultural factors in the context of social entrepreneurship offers inconsistent results. We suggest that this is related to theoretical claims that cultural values and cultural practices are not interchangeable, but instead, distinct constructs. In recognition of this discrepancy, we propose an alternate conceptualization of culture – cultural dissonance – which captures the misalignment in society between values and practices. Our research explores the value of this conceptualization by examining the influence of cultural inconsistencies on social entrepreneurial action across 33 countries (N = 23,828). Results demonstrate that cultural dissonance hinders engagement in social entrepreneurship in socially supportive cultures but promotes engagement in performance-based cultures, and that male social entrepreneurs are more sensitive to the effects of cultural dissonance than female social entrepreneurs. We integrate gender role congruity theory and action-based models of cognitive dissonance to explain how and why cultural inconsistencies engender a cognitive response that disrupts social entrepreneurial action.