21 Apr 2026
“An idea has no real value until it survives the perception of another culture.”
In an increasingly interconnected world, entrepreneurial ideas are no longer tested in isolation.
Dr Victor (Vik) Pérez, Associate Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Hub (EEH), has introduced the Global Entrepreneurial Clash—an educator-led initiative designed to enhance how students test and refine entrepreneurial ideas across cultural contexts.
The Clash focuses on how entrepreneurial concepts are understood and interpreted differently around the world. By engaging students in structured cross-cultural dialogue, it provides a new format for examining how ideas resonate beyond their original setting. The Clash introduces what can be described as a “cross-cultural perception test” for entrepreneurial ideas. This approach highlights how the value of an idea can shift depending on the context in which it is interpreted.
Developed as part of Dr Pérez’s work on brain-driven approaches to entrepreneurship and student learning under complexity, the Global Entrepreneurial Clash is currently being piloted with student teams at XJTLU through Dr Pérez’s ongoing teaching and student-focused innovation activities at XJTLU.
Rather than functioning as a traditional pitch competition, the Clash is designed as a learning-focused environment. Students participate in a moderated online exchange, where they present their ideas and receive perspectives from peers in different cultural and academic contexts.
This process allows participants to identify assumptions, clarify their thinking, and better understand how their ideas may be perceived internationally—an increasingly important skill in today’s global innovation landscape.
“I created the Global Entrepreneurial Clash to help students engage with perspectives beyond their immediate context,” says Pérez. “When students interact with peers from other cultures, they begin to see how their ideas are understood beyond their own assumptions—and that insight can fundamentally reshape how they develop and communicate them.”
Following its initial pilot phase, further collaborations may be explored with institutions in other countries. The initiative reflects Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s growing role as a hub for innovative, globally connected approaches to entrepreneurship education.
By Victor (Vik) Pérez
Edited by Xiaolu Jiang
21 Apr 2026