Search results

Transnational migration is a key challenge in migrant-sending and host-receiving countries. However, relatively little is known about how migrants use network capital to foster small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how network capital fosters Laotian migrant workers in Thai family SMEs.

This research was conducted using qualitative network analysis (QNA). Referral snowball sampling was used to draw 20 participants from December 2021 to March 2022. Data analysis was performed using Gephi, a software package developed for QNA (coding, network features, measure nodes and network metrics).

The main findings are the following four emerging themes: chain networks, social networks, human networks and financial networks are associated with network capital for fostering Laotian migrant workers in Thai family SMEs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first QNA to explore how Laotian migrant workers use network capital in Thai family SMEs.

This study analyzes the role of migrant networks in the migration flows in relation to the educational level of the migrants and economic growth of the states of origin and destination in Brazil.

Fixed effects estimator applied to microdata.

The results show migrant networks have a significant and positive impact on migration flows of the different educational levels. The economic growth in the destination state accentuates this effect, while the economic growth in the origin state has distinct impacts according to the educational level of the new migrant.

The authors investigate the importance of migrant networks in the internal immigration within a developing country with large internal movement of people. In Brazil, the socio-economic condition of the population varies considerably in relation to its geography, which explains the country’s large internal migration flows.

The challenges facing today's Mexican migrant population, almost a third of the US migrant population, are formidable. Such high representation offers not only challenges, but also increased political representation and large networks of social support. Complex relationships established through such networks provide Mexican migrants with avenues of access to communities, opportunities and services. Following a working definition of community and the concept of social capital, this paper examines health care availability for Mexican migrants in the United States. Because Mexican women are traditionally responsible for the health of their families, a case study is used to illustrate how knowledge and information gained through women's social networks gives Mexican women in the US critical decision‐making power with regard to health care. Greater acknowledgement of women as the brokers of health‐preserving information networks is key to recognising their significance as stakeholders in community health care. Future policy developers should recognise the importance of understanding such specific contextual issues, because they create a health care system that is responsive to individual and community needs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the emergence of a social enterprise by highly skilled members of a diaspora. While most literature has focused on government intervention for diaspora engagement and monetary remittance flows from migrants, less attention has been paid to the transfer of social remittances and social enterprises created by diasporas. Based on the concept of social remittances, social network theory and motivation perspectives, this study unpacks the emergence of a social enterprise by highly skilled migrants of a developing country.

This study examines social enterprise emergence through an autoethnographic approach to describe and systematically analyze personal experience. This approach allows to understand cultural experience around the emergence of a social enterprise created by diverse members of a diaspora.

Findings reveal that diaspora knowledge networks (DKNs) can emerge through the activation of a highly skilled diaspora network structure. Core diaspora members can activate a latent network of highly skilled migrants that wish to fulfill intrinsic motivations. Findings support the extend current understandings of social remittances by highly skilled migrants, who emerge as a transnational community that desires to stay connected to their country-of-origin and can support the emergence of a transnational network structure for development. The findings reveal that place attachment, sense of duty and well-being are key factors for highly skilled migrants to engage in DKNs.

The paper contributes to literature on networks and migrant-based organizational emergence by examining how and why highly skilled migrants from a developing country engage in the emergence of a DKN. Findings challenge previous views of government intervention and provides evidence on how the transmission of collective social remittances can flow trans-nationally, making highly skilled migrants effective agents of knowledge circulation and DKNs a vehicle for transmission. More specifically, the study provides evidence of the relevance of transnational features in the context of diaspora networks that lead to organizational emergence. It underscores the influence of interrelated motivations in diaspora engagement studies.

This paper aims to explore the connectivity between social media use, access to migrant networks, information asymmetry and migration intentions.

The study was conducted using data from individuals living in Nigeria and analysed with a generalized structural equation model, which is rare for this kind of research.

The authors find a dual mediating role of the social media and the migrant networks in facilitating migration, i.e. reducing the threshold cost required to migrate and introducing a bias in terms of information asymmetry. While social media and access to migrant networks directly increase migration intentions, this changes when incomplete information is provided. People who use social media and their migrant networks for information are more likely to have information about destination countries than information on the transit risk.

The study adds valuable insights for designing awareness campaigns aimed at reducing irregular migration.

This study contributes to the understanding of the intersection of migration and digitalization

Building upon previous studies on the factors shaping undocumented migrants’ experiences on the host labour markets, the purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical understanding of labour market participation and ethnic solidarity networks, accounting for the sending context of war and political persecution, and the trajectory to irregularity.

This paper extends the understanding of the role of ethnic solidarity networks on the labour market participation of migrants with insecure legal status. It draws on data from a questionnaire survey of 178 Iraqi-Kurdish migrants with insecure legal status, four focus groups and ten expert interviews. Working conditions and sectors of employment are explored alongside strategies for accessing work and the role of ethnic solidarity networks.

The analysis of the data provides strong support for the theoretical expectations outlined above, assuming that the conflict-generated diaspora communities display a very distinct solidarity among its members, embedded in a shared history of conflict, persecution and identity struggles. Ethnic solidarity is put to the ultimate test in times of intensified enforcement of employment and immigration law. It stretches to accommodate the risks that employers take to provide work to their insecure co-ethnics, facing the tangible threat of raids, business closure, defamation and colossal fines, to mention but a few. In this context, the authors have defined “stretched solidarity” as a form of support and resource sharing among certain conflict-generated ethnic groups, embedded not only within a shared history of displacement, collective memory and trauma, and shared culture, language, loyalties, obligations and experiences but also in the “reception context”, which may limit ethnic solidarity through restrictive immigration controls.

The authors recognise the limits of the paper, which are that analysis is mainly based on experiences of the majority of whom were young and male migrants with insecure migration legal status, rather than employers.

This paper has identified the social phenomenon of “stretched solidarity” and has set out a model for understanding its embeddedness within conflict-generated diasporic networks. By drawing together research insights and data on Iraqi-Kurdish migrants with insecure legal status, it addressed the central research question how “unauthorised” migrants get access to the segmented labour market at a time of increased in-border controls in the UK.

The paper contributes towards an enhanced understanding of the complex phenomenon of “stretched solidarity” and its role in migrants’ gaining access to and maintaining employment in the host labour market. The notion of “stretched solidarity” developed here provides a platform for identifying a number of emerging areas for further empirical study and policy thinking. This requires advanced research not only into the processes of migrants’ access to the host labour market but also into the role of ethnic networks, resources and structures that enable migrants in precarious situations to survive.

The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the migrant entrepreneur’s social capital and specifically their family social capital in the success of their crowdfunding ventures.

This paper develops an exploratory single case study of the Persu Bag started by a Chinese migrant entrepreneur in the USA, which was documented through in-depth interviews, email communication, social media interactions and secondary documents publicly available. This paper draws on crowdfunding and social capital literature to fulfil the purpose and adopt the perspective of the migrant entrepreneur in the study.

The study shows that the crowdfunding migrant entrepreneur’s family network contributes with their operand and operant resources from both the country of residence and country of origin. Besides having financial capacity, institutional knowledge and experience from both the host and home countries, the family network in both countries make the crowdfunding immigrant entrepreneur’s families more resourceful, providing additional benefits to the crowdfunding migrant entrepreneurs in the development of the campaign and crowdfunded venture.

This study broadens the understanding of the ways migrant entrepreneurs can rely on their family social capital for building financial capacity and starting a crowdfunded venture.

The purpose of this paper is to study how proximity affects the trade-migration link. By focusing on two case studies, France and Egypt, the authors explore if migrants promote and help to deal with market heterogeneity in international markets. Using an ethnic network approach the authors also test for interactions between the characteristics of migrants and proximity issues.

The paper builds on two case studies to illustrate the main working hypotheses. The main framework is that of ethnic networks, proximity ties, and market heterogeneity. Static and dynamic panel data methods are employed when estimating extended gravity trade equations. The authors account for country-pair fixed effects and instrument by lagged stocks of migrants, in order to deal with bilateral commonalities and endogeneity issues in the estimation procedure.

The paper provides evidence on how proximity enhances trade. Additional trade effects are found for countries sharing closer ties. Networks of migrants appear to help firms to deal with fixed trade costs, also generating some market heterogeneity that at the end influences the trade-migration linkage. Characteristics of migrants also seem to matter, interacting with proximity issues, and resulting in specific trade effects.

Proximity issues seem to matter in the trade creation effects of networks of migrants. In this way integration processes between countries would be showing some positive externalities in the side of trade flows. Characteristics of emigrants should be taken into account when defining migratory policies, mainly for the education and assimilation issues.

The paper get deeper insights in some emerging issues in the trade-migration literature by focusing in two relevant case studies.

In this explorative study, the authors aim to contribute to the literature on socio-economic integration and migrant entrepreneurship by conducting an investigation into the migration journeys of Ukrainian migrants developing entrepreneurial activities in Krakow, Poland. The main research question for this study is as follows: how do migrant entrepreneurs establish their businesses in the new host country context? The authors have undertaken a qualitative comparative study, adopting an interpretivist paradigm involving 32 interviews with migrants of Ukrainian descent in Kraków and other cities, who are engaging in entrepreneurial activity. The findings reveal the critical importance of diaspora networks in business foundation and development, especially the linkages between the Ukrainians and other migrants from other former Soviet countries, a finding in line with Rodgers, Vershinina, Williams, and Theodorakopoulos’s (2019) findings from a study of migrants in the UK. The authors also demonstrate how as a result of the worsening economic and political climate in Ukraine, many businesses are being transferred to Poland.

The purpose of this paper is to present the unreported phenomenon of migrants with sight loss who experience unsupportive behaviour and attitudes from their own ethnic community due to their disability. In presenting specific case studies from a wider PhD study which investigated the previously undocumented experiences of migrants with sight loss in Ireland, the intention is to raise awareness among service providers of the additional vulnerability of this minority group.

Migrants representing diverse ethnicities (Angolan, Algerian Nigerian, Zambian, Polish, Czech Republic, Malaysia Bangladeshi) described their experiences accessing disability services Ireland and discussed comparative attitudes towards disability in their home and host country. Service providers from the national organization working with people with sight loss were interviewed to gain an understanding of their attitudes and views on access and provision for migrants. By adopting a qualitative method following a constructivist grounded theory approach, migrants' own perceptions, beliefs, views and experiences of the sensitive subject of adjusting to sight loss while away from home were prioritised. Analysis of data was facilitated through qualitative software Atlas.ti and three core interrelated categories emerged most prominently: cultural perceptions of disability; support networks; and cultural barriers. The focus for this paper draws most significantly from the second category, support networks, most specifically the impact of absence or withdrawal of support for the migrant at the most vulnerable time of sight loss away from home.

From grounded theory data analysis, three core interrelated categories emerged most prominently. They are: cultural perceptions of disability; support networks; and cultural barriers. This paper focuses most directly from findings related to support networks specifically highlighting two migrant case studies to report the impact of absence or withdrawal of support for migrant at the most vulnerable time of sight loss away from home. Service providers interviewed report inadequate information about migrants with sight loss. Evidence of stigma related to cultural perception of disability in the home community as trigger for discrimination from migrant's own network is reported by service providers. Findings are examined within an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, combining intercultural studies theories with disability models to facilitate a holistic understanding of the migrants' experience.

The challenge of coping with disability for a migrant whose ethnic community network is absent, or withdraws its support owing to an individual's disability, have implications for alerting service providers to increased vulnerability of migrant service users. Consequently, this study has implications for programs and policies and can inform the development of culturally sensitive and appropriate services.

This study raises awareness of the compounded challenge for migrants with sight loss who are unsupported by their own ethnic group while living in a host country.

This study reveals the previously unreported case of migrants who experience unsupportive behaviour from their own ethnic community following acquired disability. Evidence from migrants and their service providers demonstrates the impact of cultural perceptions of disability to influence the level of ethnic community support offered.