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Through the reconstruction of the events of some foreign entrepreneurs who worked in the territory of the Italian city of Bari in the first half of the 19th century, this paper aims to analyze the role of entrepreneurial migration in the economic development of Apulia land in this period.

This study adopts a theoretical framework that combines the concept of mixed embeddedness in a multifocal perspective, with the model of the diffusion of innovation focusing on the role of the so-called agency of actors, and of the network, in the dissemination of innovation. The theoretical framework is applied to multiple case studies to compare the evidence that emerged from the simultaneous analysis of several situations.

By analyzing how innovations have spread within the network of entrepreneurs of that time, it is possible to identify some relevant aspects related to the mechanisms of dissemination of innovations in the context of entrepreneurial migration. Specifically, the opportunity structure is intended in an even broader sense than indicated in the classic approach to mixed embeddedness: it is considered as the result of the joint interaction of the political, institutional and economic context of several places, and the behavioral dynamics of several groups.

Due to the specific method chosen, the outcomes of the research might apply to a narrow context. Therefore, the results need to be tested and confirmed in further empirical studies, and by applying multiple research methods.

Findings are useful and significant in the analysis of the link that exists between the diffusion of innovations and migrant entrepreneurship, and then the conclusions can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations, with specific reference to developing countries.

Findings can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations and highly skilled migration, with specific reference to developing countries.

This paper contributes to shed new light on the contextual and multifocal factors that influence the development of innovations in the networks of migrant entrepreneurship, in a specific historical period and a specific context. Combining social, human and financial capital with the wider opportunity structure, this study also provides a comprehensive understanding of the modalities through which migrant and high-skilled entrepreneurs could innovate.

To date, research on migration and entrepreneurship has rarely focused expat-preneurs. Based on recent developments in both fields, this paper aims to investigate the under-researched phenomenon of Chinese self-initiated expatriates who choose to temporarily live and do business abroad on their own volition.

To address this research gap, 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Chinese expat-preneurs living in Portugal were conducted, exposing their narratives about their multiple challenges.

The findings corroborate the theoretical need to look beyond narrow economic explanations for why individuals engage in transnational entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial itinerancy. A collective identity and ethnic community are important because they influence how opportunities are identified and pursued.

This is a qualitative and interpretative study in a limited geographical area, which does not intent to ensure generalizability. More research is needed to further understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurial itinerancy in Europe and among other ethnic communities.

The findings provide insightful inputs to Portuguese policymakers and locals on how to support ethnic entrepreneurship. Chinese expat-preneurs also benefit from understanding how to strength their ethnic social ties in connection with local communities.

This study contributes to the entrepreneurship and international mobility literatures by providing new insights into the nature and dynamics of Chinese “expat-preneurs”, including their entrepreneurial itinerancy, necessary to properly understand entrepreneurs’ diversity and assist in extending transnational entrepreneurial theory.

Within the growing study of transnational entrepreneurial practice, existing conceptualisation of diaspora entrepreneurship has often lacked engagement with the particularities of the diaspora condition. This paper seeks to advance theoretical understanding and empirical study of diaspora entrepreneurship through identifying the processes that generate diaspora entrepreneurship across economic, social and political spheres.

To analyse the relationship between the development of venture activity and diaspora (re)production, in depth, qualitative biographical analysis was undertaken with UK-based diaspora entrepreneurs embedded within the particular contexts of the Sri Lankan Tamil and Kurdish diasporas. Skilled and active diaspora entrepreneurs were purposively selected from these extreme case contexts to explore their entrepreneurial agency within and across the business, social and political realms.

Results identified key dimensions shaping the development of diaspora entrepreneurship. These comprised the role of diaspora context in shaping opportunity frameworks and the mobilisation of available resources, and how venture activity served to sustain collective diaspora identity and address diaspora interests. These findings are used to produce an analytical model of the generation of diaspora entrepreneurship to serve as a basis for discussing how heterogeneous and hybrid entrepreneurial strategies emerge from and shape the evolving diaspora context.

By placing the reproduction of social collectivity centre-stage, this paper identifies the particularities of diaspora entrepreneurship as a form of transnational entrepreneurship. This recognizes the significance of a contextualised understanding of entrepreneurial diversity within wider processes of diaspora development, which has important implications for policy and practice development in homeland and settlement areas.

This paper focuses on the motivation of females to start businesses in developed and emerging economies. Although the issues related to the motivation of entrepreneurs have been widely studied, there are a few studies focusing on the differences in women’s entrepreneurial motivation in countries with different levels of market economy development. Furthermore, existing studies on female founders mainly adapt the concepts that have often been developed in male-dominated paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth motivations of female entrepreneurs in different contexts and discover the dissimilarities in women’s entrepreneurial motivations in countries with different levels of economic development.

The qualitative research approach is applied in this study to explore the social-driven and profit-driven motives of female entrepreneurs. The authors have employed purposeful sampling to select cases. The authors investigated the motivations of 45 female entrepreneurs in Norway (12), Russia (21) and Ukraine (12). Semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data. The authors have also triangulated the data collected from interviews with the data available on the internet, company reports and newspaper publications.

The findings indicate that women often pursuit business opportunities to satisfy social needs, rather than focusing on traditional business outcomes such as growth or profit. However, different contexts – the emerging economies context of Russia and Ukraine and the developed one of Norway – seem to influence the motivation to establish new ventures differently. The study found a stronger desire to contribute to a society’s needs among female founders in Norway compared to their counterparts in Russia and Ukraine. This indicates that cultural and social context in developed countries, such as in Norway, probably provides more possibilities for female entrepreneurs for self-realisation elsewhere leaving more room for focusing on societal issues in business in comparison with emerging countries contexts.

A novel conceptual contribution is the exploration of links between the social-driven and profit-driven motives of female entrepreneurs in emerging and developed economises. The study also adds to debates relating to context embeddedness of smaller firms.

All entrepreneurs face challenges during their venture start-up process, but immigrant entrepreneurs face additional and distinctive challenges due to their contextual newness. This paper focuses on understanding the intertwined journeys of nascent entrepreneurship and cross-cultural adaptation of immigrants in a small Western European country where immigrant entrepreneurship is still a relatively new phenomenon.

The induction-driven, 18-month longitudinal empirical inquiry focused on six early-stage nascent entrepreneurs. Qualitative methods included participant observation during an enterprise program, qualitative interviews and ongoing informal communication.

The data uncovered the interplay between the nascent immigrant entrepreneurship and cross-cultural adaptation. This led to the development of a novel conceptual framework which highlights how the cross-cultural adaptation domain links with the process of recognition, evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities by immigrant entrepreneurs. While varying temporarily and contextually, cross-cultural adaptation was found to create both enabling and constraining tensions within the nascent entrepreneurial experiences of immigrants.

It is recognized that undertaking just six cases may present a significant limitation of the research, but a close examination of even one individual's lived experience can yield valuable insights. It is hoped that future work will test the highlighted research propositions and other findings in different empirical contexts, and so add to the emerging conceptual framework on nascent immigrant entrepreneurship within the context of cross-cultural adaptation.

No previous qualitative studies have been undertaken seeking to understand how cross-cultural adaptation interacts with the early stages of nascent immigrant entrepreneurial activity. By integrating new venture creation and cross-cultural adaptation theories, this research contributes to the conceptualisation of early stages of nascent entrepreneurial activities of immigrants in a new host environment. The implications of the research are also relevant to enterprise support bodies, policymakers and practitioners who support immigrant entrepreneurship.

Given the importance of immigration and immigrant entrepreneurs in advanced economies, the authors take an entrepreneurial ecosystem perspective to study the home-country benefits possessed by immigrant entrepreneurs and how home-country entrepreneurial ecosystem factors affect immigrant entrepreneurial motivations, activities and outcomes.

This conceptual research paper follows McGaghie, Bordage and Shea's (2001) four-step new theory creation process, which suggests that new theories can be created through facts extraction from the extant literature.

The authors propose that although immigrant entrepreneurs are unable to take full benefit of the host-country entrepreneurial ecosystem due to blocked mobility, they do have capabilities to access and use their home-country entrepreneurial resources and opportunities. The authors further propose that home-country entrepreneurial capital can be systemically analyzed through the framework of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The results imply that immigrant entrepreneurship as a social and economic phenomenon can be studied more holistically from both host- and home-country perspectives compared to the traditional research boundary of the host-country only.

The research focuses on the identification of home-country effects on immigrant entrepreneurship through the lens of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Testable propositions provide directions for future empirical research on the field of immigrant entrepreneurship from a home-country perspective. The research concludes that a holistic immigrant entrepreneurship study should consider dual (host- and home-country) entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Immigrant entrepreneurs benefit from both host- and home-country entrepreneurial ecosystems. This paper suggests co-effects of dual entrepreneurial ecosystems lead to a high rate of entrepreneurship and business success within some immigrant groups. Policymakers can increase economic activities by developing and deploying programs to encourage immigrants to embed in host- and home-country entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Based on the framework of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, this paper brings a novel perspective to examining home-country effects on immigrant entrepreneurship. It theoretically conceptualizes that immigrants have higher entrepreneurship rates than native-born populations because they have access to extra home-country entrepreneurial capital.