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The purpose of this paper is to aim at assessing the impacts of the embedded nature of ethnic Chinese businesses on the management of business failure in China ventures.

Upon reviewing the key literature on ethnic Chinese transnational business ventures and, in particular, the concept of embeddedness, the paper proceeds with a description of the data based on ethnographic research among ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in both Singapore and Malaysia and a brief portrayal of the development of their investments in China since the 1980s. In subsequent sections the empirical findings are first presented and then analyzed. The conclusions reflect on the changing nature of the embeddedness of the ethnic Chinese in diverse but shared legacies.

The experience of business failure in China contributes to a reorientation among the ethnic Chinese towards both their national communities and each other – and finally affects their transnational business strategies. This process of re‐embedding identity is intertwined with the diverging ethnic politics of the Singaporean and Malaysian nation states and results in the redefinition of a shared identity.

While the literature on the ethnic Chinese business community is focusing on those factors that are conducive to business operations, little attention has been paid to the manners in which business failure is dealt with. In this paper, business failure will be investigated in terms of the impact emanating from the embeddedness of ethnic Chinese businesses in complex economic, social‐cultural, and political configurations.

Recounts the history of the Chinese Diaspora in Australia, which dates back to the Gold Rush of the 1850s. In the past three decades, following the end of the white Australia policy, many ethnic Chinese immigrants have immigrated to Australia. Although there are only 300,000 people of Chinese ancestry living in Australia, Chinese immigration is a critical chapter of Australia’s immigration experience. Chinese entrepreneurs have played a major role in the history of the Chinese in Australia. Explores the experience of Chinese entrepreneurs in Australia from the earliest days till the present and reviews historical accounts of Chinese entrepreneurs in Australia, before presenting the results of recent research. Argues that it is necessary to investigate how ethnicity, gender and class have intersected to shape changing patterns of Chinese entrepreneurship in the Australian Chinese Diaspora. Suggests also that the dynamics of Chinese immigration and Chinese entrepreneurship in Australia have been shaped by the changing dynamics of globalisation, the state and the racialisation of Chinese immigrants in the Australian labour market and society as a whole.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese immigrant businesses in Australia were able to shift from low return start-up businesses and move to more competitive business models targeting mainstream clientele. The research aims to identify the factors enabling a break-out strategy for these entrepreneurs and whether a horizontal or vertical break-out was achieved.

A qualitative research method with in-depth interviews is employed. Interviews were conducted with 55 Chinese immigrant business owners in Sydney and Canberra.

The analysis found that a break-out strategy depended on a range of business activities, including innovation, marketing, networking and personnel strategies. Importantly, the current research found that these resources have varying degrees of importance in the different stages of the transition to the new business model. Accumulating sufficient financial capital was a fundamental enabler for a break-out strategy, followed by the capacity to learn and benefit from the experience of social networks.

The current research highlights the importance of financial capital and capacity to benefit from social networks as fundamental factors in enabling a break-out strategy. The benefit of the qualitative approach in obtaining rich data needs to be offset by potential limitations on generalisability. Future research could incorporate comparison between different size businesses as well as analysing factors underpinning a failure to successfully implement a break-out.

The findings indicate that business support groups and policymakers could review access to financial capital for entrepreneurs seeking break-outs, consider improving opportunities for developing capacity to utilise heterogeneous social networks, and consider pathways for improving skills acquisition amongst immigrant entrepreneurs.

This paper contributes to the research literature on break-out strategies used by immigrant entrepreneurs by analysing, in detail, the transition steps undertaken by ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in the shift to more competitive business models.

Literature on immigrant and ethnic minority entrepreneurship almost exclusively focusses on the west, while neglecting other world regions. This neglect is problematic not only because international migration is on the rise outside the west, but also because it reveals an implicit ethnocentrism and creates particular presumptions about the nature of ethnic minority entrepreneurship that may not be as universally valid as is often presumed. The purpose of this paper is to examine ethnic minority entrepreneurship in non-western contexts to critically assess two of these presumptions, namely that it occurs in the economic margins and within clear ethnic community boundaries.

The authors draw on academic literature (including the authors’ own) to develop two case descriptions of ethnic minority entrepreneurship outside the west: the Mennonites in Belize and the Chinese in Cambodia. For each case, the authors describe the historic entrepreneurial trajectory, i.e. the historical emergence of entrepreneurship in light of relevant community and society contexts.

The two cases reveal that, in contrast to characterisations of ethnic minority entrepreneurship in the west, the Mennonites in Belize and the Chinese in Cambodia have come to comprise the economic upper class, and their business activities are not confined to ethnic community boundaries.

The paper is the first to elaborate the importance of studying ethnic minority entrepreneurship outside the west, both as an aim in itself and as a catalyst to work towards a more neutral framework.

The study aims to examine the causes of the divergent patterns of contemporary transnational engagement with China among new Chinese immigrants and the effect of transnational entrepreneurship on migrants’ integration into their host societies.

It is based on a multi-sited ethnographic study that contains interviews, participant observations, and analysis of relevant event coverage and commentaries by the media, which were conducted between 2008 and 2013 in Singapore, the United States, and China.

The study finds that different migration histories, structural circumstances in both sending and receiving societies, and locations in the transnational social field give rise to divergent patterns of economic transnationalism, and that the rise of China has opened up new avenues for transnational entrepreneurship, which has not only benefited hometown development in China but also created economic opportunities for Chinese immigrants, leading to desirable mobility outcomes. In particular, transnational entrepreneurship has promoted deeper localization rather than deterritorialization and contributed to strengthening the economic base of the existing ethnic enclave, which in turn offers an effective alternative path for migrants’ integration in their host societies.

The study is exploratory in nature. As with all ethnographic studies, its generalizability is limited.

The study suggests that, when transnational entrepreneurship is linked to the existing ethnic social structure in which a particular identity is formed, the effect on the group becomes highly significant. The comparative approach of the study can help unveil different dynamics, processes, and consequences of transnationalism and complex factors behind variations on diasporic development and immigrant integration.

Looking at entrepreneurship beyond nation-state boundaries and beyond the economic gains of individual migrants.

The purpose of this paper is to address the cultural challenges of gaining and maintaining qualitative research access into ethnic small firms. In particular, it evaluates the influence of cultural affinity – between researchers and business owners – on gaining and maintaining access into ethnic minority owned firms.

This paper reflects on the experiences of facilitating and maintaining research access into a sample of 258 small Turkish and Chinese ethnic minority businesses in London.

This paper study illustrates that researchers need to demonstrate cultural awareness to ethnic business owners and understand the socio‐cultural environment in which their firms operate in order to be able to gain and maintain research access.

Data collection is limited to Turkish and Chinese ethnic minority owned businesses in London, and other ethnic entrepreneurs are excluded. Therefore, care should be taken in making generalisations from the sample.

This paper identifies a number of important skills which can be exploited in negotiating and gaining research access. These are communication, interpersonal and cultural awareness skills.

This paper addresses a neglected area in the research process, namely research access, which has important implications for the type of data collected, sampling and data collection techniques. The paper thus identifies “research access” as an important element of research design.

This study aims to investigate investing and borrowing behavior in retail banking between ethnic groups, specifically the Caucasians vis‐à‐vis the Chinese.

A total sample of 645 Caucasians and Chinese in Australia, Canada and China were tested for their level of business assigned to their main banks, defined as share of wallet (SOW) in this study. The study applied multivariate analyses.

No significant differences were found between the ethnic Chinese in Australia and Canada in comparison to their counterparts in mainland China, or compared with the Caucasians in Australia and Canada. This finding of convergence suggests that ethnic Chinese have adapted to the local banking behavior. The ethnic Chinese in Australia and Canada assigned 81‐88 percent of their assets to their main banks, in comparison to only 72 percent for their counterparts in China and 73 percent for the Caucasians. As such, the ethnic Chinese in Australia and Canada have developed their own unique behavior, resulting in crossvergence: an over‐adaptation to local behavior in managing their assets, and a mid‐way approach between the Chinese in China and the local Caucasians when it comes to borrowing money.

For bank marketing managers, this form of crossvergence constitutes a challenge as it suggests that gaining the trust of Chinese customers is complex since the SOW is lowest in the booming emerging market (i.e. China) whereas ethnic Chinese consumers in Western markets have formed their own unique pattern of allocating business to their banks. “Ethnic banking” is suggested to offer tailored services to ethnic groups in order to satisfy their specific money management.

This study establishes that Chinese consumers in Western markets are a distinct consumer group. Products and services need to be specially customized to suit their wants and needs.

Like many other cosmopolitan cities, Washington, DC has a Chinatown, a site of leisure and consumption, based on the commodification and marketing of ethno-cultural diversity. The successful transformation of an ethnic precinct into a tourist attraction depends on supportive economic and social infrastructure as well as on the flourishing of small-businesses, commodifying ethnic features. For sure, this Chinatown does not represent the nodal point of a vibrant community. On the contrary, it is artificially kept alive by city planners and a handful of self-appointed Chinese spokespersons through its inclusion in DC's regulatory structures that strongly support and promote ethnic theming.

Overseas Chinese business networks have had a profound effect on the economic development of mainland China and on the global economy as a whole. Such networks are based predominantly on familial, language and cultural factors and provide a foundation on which business is conducted, often with reduced transaction costs and with resilience to major shifts in the financial markets. This paper aims to explore business networks in the US Chinese diaspora.

The paper begins with a brief introduction to the concept of ethnic business networks. Subsequent sections provide historical background on the Chinese diaspora and the role Chinese business networks have played around the world. An examination of how such networks have evolved in the US context follows. Finally, implications are discussed and a research agenda is suggested.

It is suggested that a different type of business networking pattern has evolved in the US context, one that is less reliant on the traditional pillars of family, language and culture and more on intellectual capital.

No empirical evidence is presented here. However, a research agenda is specified.

Relatively little has been written that specifically addresses the US Chinese business experience, which differs in several important ways from other groups in the Chinese diaspora. This paper examines this branch of the Chinese diaspora, focusing on the networking behaviors among professionals, including those that have most recently emerged in the high tech sector.