Maximizing Social Proximity in Market Relations: The Networks of Nigerian Immigrant Business Owners in New York City
The Economics of Ecology, Exchange, and Adaptation: Anthropological Explorations
ISBN: 978-1-78635-228-6, eISBN: 978-1-78635-227-9
Publication date: 1 September 2016
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter highlights the agency of Nigerian immigrant business owners in constructing their business-related social networks. Literature on immigrant business owners emphasizes their social network embeddedness as a key explanatory factor in their economic integration. I show here ways in which members of one immigrant group purposely shape these networks into the most advantageous form: impersonal/socially distant suppliers, personal/socially close employees, and impersonal/socially distant customers.
Methodology/approach
Data for the chapter come from 36 semistructured qualitative interviews conducted in New York City with Nigerian small business owners and participant observation in their businesses.
Findings
Nigerian immigrant business owners in New York tend over time to shift from business networks of primarily Nigerian or other socially close suppliers, employees, and customers, to networks of mainly socially close employees, and socially distant suppliers and customers.
Research limitations/implications
The chapter’s concern is limited to Nigerian immigrant business owners in New York City. Others in other places may behave differently.
Originality/value
The literature on immigrant business owners is dominated by Asian and Latin American examples while this chapter features the experiences of Nigerian immigrants. It also presents a group that does not fit the widely accepted disadvantage hypothesis of immigrant self-employment. Finally, where many studies treat social networks as static structures, this chapter emphasizes the agency of immigrants in altering the composition of their networks to maximize their position in it.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
This chapter is based on research supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0718968) and from the Department of Anthropology, Africana Research Center and the Research and Graduate Studies Office at the Pennsylvania State University. The author wishes to thank all the Nigerians in New York City who took the time to participate in her study.
Citation
Rodriguez, L. (2016), "Maximizing Social Proximity in Market Relations: The Networks of Nigerian Immigrant Business Owners in New York City", The Economics of Ecology, Exchange, and Adaptation: Anthropological Explorations (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 36), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 117-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120160000036005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited