Cultural Legacies of Conflict: The Historical Influence of Battles on Modern Native American Entrepreneurship

Scholarship recognizing the profound impact of historical trauma on modern organizational behavior critically misses how past responses to traumatic shocks shape present-day organizational differences. In this paper, we show how historical variations in group responses to traumatic shocks have a community cultural effect that differentially influences modern entrepreneurial activities and outcomes. We focus on a particular traumatic shock that has received relatively little scholarly attention: the trauma of colonization experienced by Native American tribes. We investigate the relationship between tribes’ historical responses to the trauma—as measured by battles with European colonists—and their modern strategic business decisions, namely the illicit establishment of gambling facilities (i.e., casinos). We theorize that engagement in battles stimulated greater social cohesion in the form of a stronger within-group bond among tribal members and a more distinctive between-group boundary relative to “outsiders.” To test our predictions, we gather and analyze data on all federally recognized Native American tribes in the contiguous United States and find support for our theorizing. 

*Paper with Travis Howell and Shon Hiatt

**Currently preparing for submission