ARE ETHNIC ENCLAVES REALLY TIEBOUT CLUBS? ETHNIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF CLUBS

Abstract

Since Piore’s (1979) seminal work on ethnic economies, there has been significant development in our understanding of the grouping process of immigrants and co-ethnics into economic, social, and political units, and the behavior of immigrant entrepreneurs within these groups. During the past two decades a number of sociologists have contributed several important concepts to the study of ethnic entrepreneurship such as social capital (e.g. Portes, 1998; Portes & Landolt, 1996, 2000), social embeddedness and network ties (e.g. Kloosterman & Rath, 2001; Portes & Sensenbrenner, 1993; Rath, 2002), and fine tuning the definitional distinctions between levels of co-ethnic cohesiveness, such as ethnic neighborhoods, ethnic economies, and ethnic enclaves (e.g. Light & Gold, 2000; Waldinger, 1982; Waldinger et al., 1990). More recently, business theorists have started to examine the problem of ethnic economic activity, incorporating more economic and entrepreneurship strategy concepts such as resource dependency (Greene, 1997), buyer-supplier relationships (Galbraith et al., 2003), access to financing (Smallbone et al., 2002), and differential marketing systems (Iyer & Shapiro, 1999). What appears to be sometimes lacking in modern discussions of ethnic economies and entrepreneurial behavior, however, is an underlying and unifying theoretical paradigm.

Citation

Galbraith, C.S. (2003), "ARE ETHNIC ENCLAVES REALLY TIEBOUT CLUBS? ETHNIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF CLUBS", Stiles, C.H. and Galbraith, C.S. (Ed.) Ethnic Entrepreneurship: Structure and Process (International Research in the Business Disciplines, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 45-58. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1074-7877(03)04002-9