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1 – 10 of over 23000Pawan Dhingra and Jennifer Parker
This study considers an under-explored pathway of immigrant business expansion beyond contemporary models of ethnic entrepreneurship.
Abstract
Purpose
This study considers an under-explored pathway of immigrant business expansion beyond contemporary models of ethnic entrepreneurship.
Methodology/approach
We push against dominant theories of immigrant adaptation and small business, such as assimilation theory, to explain a rise of franchised small businesses among Indian Americans. We combine two cases on Indian American small business ownership, based on years of qualitative fieldwork each.
Findings
Indian Americans have forged a new path of immigrant business growth beyond either enclave or middleman minority businesses. The growth of franchised stores by immigrants remains underexplored in the immigration and work literature. Their growth in the industry signals a type of mobility, by moving more into corporate models of business ownership and performance. Yet, their success has depended on many of the same mechanisms that define lower end, informal ethnic businesses, such as a reliance on ethnic social capital for information and financing, strategies to avoid racism, co-ethnic labor, and the like.
Research limitations
Like any qualitative study, it is limited by its lack of breadth. But, given that it combines two cases, it compensates for this challenge more than otherwise.
Originality/value
This chapter furthers the argument that immigrant mobility does not necessarily mean assimilation and in fact can represent a collective response against assimilationist tendencies. This continued collective strategy to mobility is all the more necessary in the face of neoliberal economic models that place greater burdens on individuals.
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The purpose of this paper is to understand the motivations and dynamics of Polish small business owners who are living and working in the United Kingdom several years after…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the motivations and dynamics of Polish small business owners who are living and working in the United Kingdom several years after Poland’s enlargement to the European Union.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 39 Polish migrants, residing in the Cardiff area, in 2008 and 2011. During the 2008 data collection period, 20 interviews were completed, and during the 2011 data collection period, 19 interviews were completed.
Findings
The findings highlight that migrants become entrepreneurs for a variety of reasons, blurring the lines between cultural and economic entrepreneurship as well as between necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship. The findings also highlight the changing motivations of the ethnic entrepreneurs over time, particularly when the demand for their product is unsustainable.
Research limitations/implications
The generalisabilty of the research is limited because of the small sample size. In addition, the lack of Polish language skills of the interviewer may have influenced the sampling of the Polish community.
Practical implications
The findings from this article will have an impact on the wider ethnic entrepreneurship literature, migration-based policy and the cultural integration of migrants in the long-term.
Originality/value
This article contributes to the wider literature on ethnic entrepreneurship through considering the migrants’ motivations throughout their entire entrepreneurial period and how these motivations may evolve over time.
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Shiv Chaudhry, Dave Crick and James M. Crick
This study develops our understanding of the internationalisation activities of ‘transnational entrepreneurs’ (TEs), namely, entrepreneurs that are socially embedded in two or…
Abstract
This study develops our understanding of the internationalisation activities of ‘transnational entrepreneurs’ (TEs), namely, entrepreneurs that are socially embedded in two or more different countries, specifically, in the context of the growing phenomenon of ‘micro-multinationals’ involving small firms with income-generating assets in more than one country. The investigation involves TEs originating from South Asia (Indian Sub-continent), based in the UK clothing and textiles sectors. Limited statistical differences exist between the perceptions of 63 survey respondents with varying degrees of international sales regarding perceived barriers and assistance requirements towards operating in overseas markets. Subsequent interview data with 16 of those TEs owning micro-multinational businesses offer unique insights, suggesting their behaviour is distinct from certain existing literature involving internationalising entrepreneurs, but that they are not a homogeneous group as strategies vary. This study provides opportunities for further research to understand TEs’ practices, including those operating in different institutional contexts.
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Yossef Arie and Gustavo S. Mesch
This study investigated the association between structural conditions and social incentives and their effect on the ethnic composition of mobile social networks. Regarding…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated the association between structural conditions and social incentives and their effect on the ethnic composition of mobile social networks. Regarding structural conditions, we examined the role of the ethnic group’s size, socioeconomic status, and heterogeneity of the city in which the business was located. Regarding social incentives, we investigated the social diversification hypothesis, which expects that residentially and socially segregated minority groups will take advantage of mobile communications to diversify their mobile communication ties with outgroup members.
Methodology/approach
Two data sets were used. The first was the aggregation of the mobile communication patterns of business customers as measured by one of Israel’s mobile phone operators in April 2010. The database included 9,099 call data records. The second was a data set of the social characteristics of 103 Israeli cities from the Israeli Bureau of Statistics. Both data sets were merged according to the place of residence of each customer.
Findings
Israeli Arab businesses in homogeneous Jewish and mixed cities operate in an environment with more structural opportunities to create outgroup ethnic ties than Arab businesses in homogeneous Arab cities. Jewish businesses in ethnically mixed cities have more outgroup mobile ties than comparable businesses in homogenous Jewish cities.
Implications
We expand previous models and suggest a structural diversification approach in which ethnic mobile social networks vary across homogeneous and ethnically mixed cities. These variations result in different social incentives as the diversification approach assumed, as well as different structural conditions, as the structural approach indicates.
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Patricia G Greene and Radha Chaganti
Contemporary studies of ethnic entrepreneurs are split into two types of discussions. On one hand they are considered as part of an underserved minority population that needs…
Abstract
Contemporary studies of ethnic entrepreneurs are split into two types of discussions. On one hand they are considered as part of an underserved minority population that needs business assistance to guide venture launch and development. In fact, the term venture would specifically not be used because of the connotation of ethnic entrepreneur as small business owner. On the other hand, some models of entrepreneurial approaches by certain ethnic groups are not only lauded, but adopted for trial by other types of communities, whether those communities be natural or artificially created. The tension between these two approaches may best be attributed to a lack of clarity in two areas. First, to whom does the designation ethnic entrepreneur actually apply? Second, what resources do ethnic entrepreneurs really use in the activities of starting and growing a business.
Entrepreneurship, business creation and self-employment are a common pattern for immigrants’ incorporating themselves into Western receiving societies. Sociologists in North…
Abstract
Entrepreneurship, business creation and self-employment are a common pattern for immigrants’ incorporating themselves into Western receiving societies. Sociologists in North America and Western Europe have devoted much energy to explain how poor unskilled immigrants have become business-owners, thereby creating what are often referred to as ‘ethnic’ economies or ‘ethnic’ niches. This scholarship is usually dominated by two key orientations. First, it is predominantly of a socio-economic nature, with comparatively little attention to the cultural implications of business; and second, it is embedded in an ‘ethnic’ approach, according to which ethnicity (broadly defined as individuals’ belonging to a specific social groups) is a key explanatory factor. By contrast, this chapter aspires to shed light on ‘mixed cultural competencies’ in entrepreneurship: this points to the way business relies upon the in-betweeness of entrepreneurs and their capacity to successfully conciliate ethnic and non-ethnic resources. It does so through the ethnographic description of a small number of shops held by German-Turkish businesspeople situated in multiethnic neighbourhoods of Berlin.
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Xiping Shinnie, Thomas Domboka and Charlotte Carey
The conceptual framework of Multicultural Hybridism is adopted to reflect the emerging themes of transnationalism and superdiversity in the context of ethnic minority migrant…
Abstract
The conceptual framework of Multicultural Hybridism is adopted to reflect the emerging themes of transnationalism and superdiversity in the context of ethnic minority migrant entrepreneurs breaking out of their ethnic enclaves into mainstream economy. It is constructed as an extension of Mixed Embeddedness theory (Kloosterman, 2006), given that ‘Multicultural Hybrid’ (Arrighetti, Daniela Bolzani, & Lasagni, 2014) firms display stronger resilience with a higher survival rate than enclaved businesses (Kloosterman, Rusinovic, & Yeboah, 2016). With further integration of incremental diversification typology (Lassalle & Scott, 2018), the current study adopts Multicultural Hybridism as a lens to explore the opportunity recognition capabilities of transnational, migrant entrepreneurs who are facilitated by the hybridity of opportunity recognition (Lassalle, 2018) from linking host-country and home-country cultures. The hybridity of opportunity recognition focuses on access to markets and resources between transnational ethnic and local multicultural mainstream markets. Through the theoretical lens of Multicultural Hybridism, interviews with 16 Birmingham-based Chinese migrant entrepreneurs have been analysed to shape a dynamic understanding of the multifaceted concept of breakout in a superdiverse and transnational context. The multilayered interpretation of breakout provides an enhanced understanding of the diversity of hybridism between transnational ethnic and local multicultural mainstream markets. This is seen from the perspectives of firm growth and social integration in the current locations and future spaces of transnational migrant entrepreneurs. It goes beyond the narrow imagination of breakout as an economic assimilation process, avoiding the singular conceptualisation of the host-country mainstream market as the only breakout destination for transnational ethnic entrepreneurs.
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Jude Kenechi Onyima, Stephen Syrett and Leandro Sepulveda
This paper contributes to the development of an enhanced understanding of the breakout strategies of immigrant entrepreneurs within a transnational context. It develops a dynamic…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper contributes to the development of an enhanced understanding of the breakout strategies of immigrant entrepreneurs within a transnational context. It develops a dynamic notion of breakout by placing it within a wider understanding of immigrant entrepreneurial strategy characterised by multifocal embeddedness within transnational space.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a qualitative research methodological approach. In-depth interviews were completed with 30 first- and second-generation UK-based Nigerian entrepreneurs and key informants, to provide data on business growth strategies of individual immigrant entrepreneurs in the context of opportunity structures across host, home and third countries.
Findings
Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs adopted distinctive entrepreneurial strategies related to the complex and diverse transnational context within which they were embedded. Findings demonstrated how the realisation of diversification and differentiation strategies was particularly influenced by locational and spatial strategies, the specific contextual embeddedness of the entrepreneur and generational differences across entrepreneurs.
Originality/value
Conceptualising immigrant entrepreneurship from a standpoint of transnational, multifocal embeddedness produces a complex and multi-layered understanding of business breakout as a dynamic process. Drawing together the unifocal, bifocal and multifocal dimensions of embeddedness with findings on the breakout strategies being pursued by immigrant entrepreneurs, an original typology is presented which identifies different approaches to breakout across varied contexts. This has significant policy and practice implications for the content, targeting and access of business support and wider social issues, relating to the identities, social mobility and integration of immigrant entrepreneurs.
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Shiv Chaudhry, Dave Crick and James M. Crick
This study investigates how a competitor orientation (knowledge of and acting on competitors' strengths and weaknesses) facilitates coopetition activities (collaboration with…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates how a competitor orientation (knowledge of and acting on competitors' strengths and weaknesses) facilitates coopetition activities (collaboration with competitors), within networks of competing micro-sized, independent, family restaurants, owned by entrepreneurs from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Design/methodology/approach
An instrumental case study features data collected from interviews with 30 owners (as key informants) of micro-sized, independent, family-owned restaurants, in two urban clusters within the Midlands (UK). Specifically, the context involves restaurants offering South Asian cuisine and where the owner originated from the Indian sub-continent (Bangladesh, India or Pakistan). Secondary data were collected wherever possible. These two clusters (not named for ethics reasons) are highly populated by members of these respective ethnic communities; also, they contain a relatively large number of restaurants offering South Asian cuisine.
Findings
A competitor orientation facilitated strong coopetition-oriented partnerships comprised of extended family and intra-community members that helped enhance individual firms' performance, maintained family employment and sustained their cluster. It also helped owners develop subtle counter strategies where weak ties existed, such as via inter-community networks. For example, strategies attracted customers that were not loyal to a particular restaurant, or indeed, sub-ethnic cuisine (within Bangladesh, India or Pakistan, like the Punjab region). Subtle as opposed to outright counter strategies minimised retaliation, since restaurant owners wanted to avoid price wars, or spreading misinformation where the reputation of a cluster may suffer alongside the likely survival of individual businesses within that regional cluster.
Originality/value
Mixed evidence exists in earlier studies regarding the competitive rivalry in certain sectors where ethnic minority ownership is prominent; not least, restaurants located in regional clusters. However, this investigation considers the notion – what if some of these earlier studies are wrong? More specifically, does certain prior research under-represent the extent that rival entrepreneurs of an ethnic minority origin collaborate rather than compete for mutually beneficial purposes? New evidence emerges regarding ways in which a competitor orientation can influence the performance-enhancing nature of coopetition activities among business owners originating from both intra and inter-ethnic communities.
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