The Effects of National Culture on Entrepreneur and Joiner Financial Incentive Preferences

Abstract

One of the most consequential actions for early stage entrepreneurs is attracting joiners to help launch their firms. Yet little is known about entrepreneurs’ and joiners’ preferences for different financial incentives- and even less is known about how these preferences vary across national cultures. We use conjoint methods to administer a survey across eleven countries to address these questions. We quantify entrepreneur and joiner preferences for different levels of equity and salary financial incentives and highlight difficult to negotiate incentive tradeoffs.