Would the next Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos be Tunisian?

?Absolutely not!

That doesn't mean that there are no, or will be no success stories of Tunisian entrepreneurs!

In fact, nobody can deny that Tunisia, thanks to its well qualified workforce, is a hub for innovation, expertise, and skills for North Africa and Mena Region.

As affirmed, there will be no Tunisian Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos for one simple reason: Mark and Jeff are not Tunisian. They are American entrepreneurs!

A Tunisian entrepreneur can’t be like an American one and vice versa.

?So, what does it mean to be a Tunisian entrepreneur?

?To come up with a convincing answer, we will go through 3 intermediate questions:

• How can we define culture ?
• How does the Tunsian cultural background impact the innovation capacity and entrepreneurial mindset of the Tunisian society??
• How could we, as Tunisians, foster innovation and entrepreneurship in our society?

How can we define culture?

Culture is the software of the mind distinguishing one group of people from another. It influences human behavior, patterns of thinking, ways of looking at the problems and apprehending situations.

How does the Tunisian cultural background impact the innovation capacity and entrepreneurial mindset of the Tunisian society?

By referring to Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions, we can get a good overview of the strengths and weaknesses of Tunisian culture in relation to innovation and entrepreneurship.?

Weaknesses?

• High Power Distance Index: which confirms the centralized organization and complex hierarchies we have. In Tunisia, professional status is an important symbol of power that indicates social position and “communicates” the respect that should be shown to one person.
• High uncertainty avoidance index: Tunisian society does not easily accept change and is highly risk averse. The rigid Tunisian codes of belief and behavior are almost intolerant of new behaviors and ideas. Tunisian society has a moderate, if not low, appetite for risk; in Tunisia, we are still on the verge of understanding that failure is part of the entrepreneurial process and is the precursor to a pivot.?
• Low masculinity index: relates to a low performance orientation as defined by GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness).

Masculinity (VS. femininity) is not related to gender representation within a society. It is ‘the extent to which a society stresses achievement (ambition, acquisition of wealth, etc.) or nurture (caring, nurturing behaviors).

Strengths

• Low individualism index: Tunisia, with a relatively low score of 40, tends towards a collectivist culture. This index reflects the Tunisians ' emphasis on building skills and becoming a master of something. People work for intrinsic rewards and maintaining harmony among group members is important for them.
• Tunisia scores relatively low on the masculinity index making it a moderately feminine society. That confirms that we are relationship and consensual oriented. This ability promotes intense human interaction and well-established relationships, which is very important when building teams, especially for startups.?

How could we, as Tunisians, foster innovation and entrepreneurship in our society??

Firstly, we are in agreement that we need to:

• Cut-out unstructured comparison and the random projections
• Consider how to create our own ecosystem based on lessons learned, not just dreaming of one day being Silicon Valley!

The initial step toward fostering innovation and entrepreneurship is to apprehend our strengths and weaknesses. Then, work on nurturing our strengths to take as much profits as we can from them and initiate a change management strategies to mitigate our weaknesses.?

Maybe as a first step, we raise awareness about the importance of the risk-taking entrepreneurial culture.

?As Tunisia has a skilled and talented workforce, secondly, we need to take advantage of our capacity for building and maintaining relationships to give up with the hierarchical organization and work on setting flatter organizational structures.?

?And finally, we may boost our rewarding achievements and performance management tools and techniques, from setting KPIs, to measuring, monitoring, evaluating and learning from experiences.

Thank you !

This article describes an approach of reflection that was initiated by observations and addressed questions about the Tunisia Startup Ecosystem.

Yes, this ecosystem, born from less than 10 years ago, is still developing and it has great potential thanks to human capacities.?

However, to move forward, it is imperative to recognize the influence of culture and how it can prevent the conduct of change.?

This understanding may allow us to prevent potential risks when moving from the As-Is state to the future state.