Search results

This paper aims to shed new light on the contextual embeddedness of intersectional entrepreneurs, i.e. entrepreneurs situated at the intersection of multiple marginalized diversity attributes, beyond simply business strategies and decisions. Taking an emic perspective on everyday practices as intersectional entrepreneurs, it uncovers neglected dimensions of the contextuality of intersectional discriminations.

The study presents qualitative data analysis results of in-depth narrative interviews with six intersectional entrepreneurs, all LGBTIQA* entrepreneurs with further diversity dimensions. It provides an emic view of intersectional entrepreneurs, in their everyday lives and the contexts, in which they develop their businesses.

Intersectional entrepreneurs face different burdens induced by social structures along the entrepreneurial process. While access to the niche market is more difficult and they lack community support, their realization of intersectional discrimination is crucial for the development of business strategies. Simultaneously, intersectional entrepreneurs use their specific diversity attributes to develop their business, yet this proximity of their identity and the business contents has severe consequences for their mental state. Intersectional entrepreneurs adjust to the balance of opportunity and vulnerability.

As intersectional entrepreneurs are barred from conventional institutional support and also have limited access to resources from their respective social networks, there is an urgency to provide specific support for such entrepreneurs.

This paper, through empirical evidence, presents a framework for exploring how entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of building legitimacy in a digital context. In so doing, this paper goes beyond the seemingly forgone conclusion that legitimacy is important for the entrepreneur's success by focusing on the contextualised mechanisms through which digital legitimacy is built.

Empirical findings are drawn from semi-structured interviews conducted with 21 digital entrepreneurs in Nigeria, a leading example of the West African context and analysed using a phenomenological approach.

The paper shows how digital entrepreneurs in a non-Western context draw on an aspect of legitimation in the digital space, and in particular, highlights three mechanisms via which this takes place, namely: digital shielding, digital curating and digital networking. Presented via an inductive approach, the three mechanisms described in the paper provide a scaffold for thinking about and understanding entrepreneurial legitimacy within a contextual framework, which incorporates institutional, cultural and digital dimensions.

This paper contributes to the literature on digital entrepreneurship by empirically identifying and theoretically elaborating themes that are important for understanding how entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of digital entrepreneurship and build entrepreneurial legitimacy in complex contexts.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to identify and discuss ways in which informal financing of the kind discussed in the case study can provide new or different opportunities for access to alternative financing schemes; assess the role of“social capital” in micro and small business development and to understand and apply the role of social capital for female entrepreneurs in the Global South; critically analyse and reflect on the new role of digital technologies in challenging traditional patriarchal social norms and exclusion and ultimately be able to evaluate the role of digital technologies in terms of its practical implications for female entrepreneurs; and understand the role played by socio-cultural and historical contexts in female-owned/managed businesses within informal sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the students should be able to discuss how these contexts provide opportunities or challenges for actionable/robust/relevant business plans for female entrepreneurs.

This case study aims to create a platform for classroom conversations around: context of entrepreneurship in informal economies, challenges of accessing finance, women entrepreneurship, opportunities of digital entrepreneurship and resource acquisition and social capital. Overall, this case study intends to inspire and cultivate additional voices to advance authentic understanding of informal business practices in the financial sector that go beyond traditional formal western settings. This case study is based on a true story relating to the “sou-sou” financing system – an informal financing scheme – originating from West Africa which has been transported to other parts of the world including Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and other parts of Africa. The characters involve Maria, the main protagonist; Eunice, from LAC; and Fidelia from West Africa. With first-hand information from Eunice and Fidelia, Maria learnt about the ideological principles and the offerings of flexibility, trust, mutual benefits and kinship of the sou-sou system and was inspired to integrate digital technologies as a sustainable game changer for accessing microfinance. This case study draws on the contextual understanding of the economy in the Global South as well as the gender-based aspects of entrepreneurship as key aspects of women entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurship. The sou-sou system is presented as a practical solution to the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the Global South to access finances, and the integration of digital technologies is considered instrumental not only in reinforcing the traditional system but also in transforming the entrepreneurial prospects for these women.

This teaching activity is aimed at postgraduate students in Master of Management and Master of Business Administration programmes. It can also be used for short executive courses, specialised PhD seminars and advanced bachelor programmes. This case study could be taught in the field of entrepreneurship in areas related to technology, gender, women entrepreneurship and financing in the context of the Global South.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs (RWMEs) are amongst the largest EU migrant communities in the UK and make significant socioeconomic contributions to both their host and origin nations, but academic research and policy discussions have ignored them. Intersectionality raises complex contextual issues that require comprehensive examination and inclusive policies and programmes. This study is aimed at exploring how Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs experience their transnational intersectional journeys of belonging, as they create, negotiate and enact their intersectional identities of the country of origin, gender and being entrepreneurs in the UK and Romania.

This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) draws on draws upon Crenshaw's (1991) intersectional and Social Identity theories (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) to investigate how nine interviewed RWMEs have experienced their transnational journeys of acculturative belonging in the UK and Romania.

The study findings show how RWMEs undo and negotiate their intersecting identities to adhere to socio-cultural standards in both their host and native nations. In the UK, they feel empowered as women entrepreneurs, but in patriarchal Romania, their entrepreneurial identity is revoked, contradicting the prescribed socio-cultural roles.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

Nonprofit organisations (NPOs) are an increasingly fundamental part of our society. Meeting rising demand requires NPOs to attract enough resources, especially volunteers, to enable service delivery. This paper aims to adopt a novel theoretical lens to reframe this marketing challenge to inform practice and extend theory.

Practice-based exploration of a volunteer-enabled NPO, parkrun, through in-depth interviews and secondary source analysis.

The research identified that the brand community connects volunteers through three inter-connected levels. The big idea of parkrun, the focal brand, resonated with people through being “on their wavelength”, something they believed in. The local, physical event meant engagement was “on their patch”, anchored in place. Finally, the brand community enables people to volunteer “on their terms”, with fluid roles and flexible levels of commitment.

Not all NPOs have service beneficiaries who are able to volunteer, services with different volunteering roles, or operate through a local physical presence. However, taking a focal brand approach to consider the brand community through which people volunteer for an NPO, the practices that reinforce that community, and how to offer volunteers significantly greater flexibility in both role and commitment presents an opportunity for NPOs to rethink how volunteering works for them in the future.

Clear recommendations for practice include the opportunity to integrate service beneficiary with service delivery enabler (volunteer) to strengthen the implicit social contract, increasing participation to deepen the social identity felt towards the brand, and key practices that reduce barriers to volunteering.

The paper extends volunteering theory from the traditional individual needs approach to a focal brand community perspective. The marketing challenge of attracting volunteer resources to NPOs is understood through rethinking the boundaries between service beneficiaries and service enablers, anchored in social identity theory. It provides clear recommendations for practice through reframing the recruitment challenge.

The methodology discussed in this chapter is extracted from a qualitative analysis that explored the entrepreneurship of Mexicans in three cities in the province of Quebec using the conceptualising categories inspired by grounded theory as an analytical tool. The main contribution of the chapter lies in the fact that the methodological decisions that were taken to answer the research question about the process of business creation by immigrants of Mexican origin are explicitly given in detail. The use and limits of the grounded theory methodology in entrepreneurship studies are discussed. The data collection procedures, the corpus of information that was analysed, the characteristics of the people who participated in the study, as well as the instruments and techniques used to understand the data are described. The chapter details the prior considerations for the selection of the study territory and the particular limits of the research. This is rarely done in studies of immigrant entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to review the immigrant entrepreneurship literature to locate how researchers consider embeddedness to home and host countries beyond the “embedded” or “not” dichotomy.

The paper conducts a systematic literature review. The authors found 106 articles in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, using a structured search and selection protocol.

Few articles perceive embeddedness openly as a gradual phenomenon. However, articles in the review use different approaches for considering relative levels of embeddedness, such as depth of social ties. In addition, some articles take a dual perspective or make multi-contextual comparisons to acknowledge immigrant entrepreneurs’ embeddedness levels. These articles emphasise embeddedness as a gradual phenomenon to understand the complexity of immigrant entrepreneurs’ contextualisation better. Based on the review, the paper develops a model, considering embeddedness as an emergent result of the immigrants’ engagement with spaces, networks, markets and institutions of a given home or host context. It also accounts for the dynamic interaction between contextual factors as embeddedness levels change.

The paper has located all relevant papers in the used databases. However, the systematic review protocol naturally limits its scope. Nevertheless, the developed model based on the review helps researchers develop a more comprehensive understanding of embeddedness and possibly ask novel questions.

This paper can help policymakers improve their policies for the progressive social integration of immigrants, as it helps consider different embeddedness levels.

Researchers mainly consider individuals’ embeddedness as either “embedded” or “not.” However, we can also understand embeddedness at various levels, e.g. partial, increasing/decreasing and gradual. Significant changes occur in the embeddedness of individuals during immigration. Additionally, contextual relations intertwine immigrants’ entrepreneurial activity over time. The paper reviews embeddedness in the immigrant entrepreneurship literature, searching beyond the dichotomic use of embeddedness. Then, it develops a theoretical understanding of embeddedness levels.

Immigrant integration through entrepreneurship is hindered by the prevalent informality of their ventures. This study aims to examine the factors influencing the formalisation of immigrant entrepreneurship, with special focus on those who are under the impact of the host country.

The study is based on a series of focus groups conducted among a total of 59 Ukrainian immigrants in Poland. Based on coding into first-order categories, second-order themes and aggregate dimensions, the authors created a model of immigrant entrepreneurship formalisation.

The results of the research included in the model show the groups of factors influencing the formalisation of immigrant entrepreneurship. Immigrants bring both their personal attitudes and embeddedness in their country of origin during immigration. Then, factors of the host country’s institutions, interactions between local authorities and local communities and the need for a new place of belonging interact in the formalisation process. Formal entrepreneurs, as a new identity for immigrants, are the result of the formalisation process.

The results not only focus on social capital or the institutional failures of formal and informal institutions in transforming immigrants into formal entrepreneurs, but we also recognise the individual aspect of the new identity as formal entrepreneurs and a new place of belonging. In addition, the authors distinguish the importance and interactions between local communities and local authorities in this process. The paper contributes to the theory of entrepreneurship, migrant study and institutional theory.

The social inclusion of immigrants has been a central public policy issue in European countries, and entrepreneurship is often promoted as a form of integration. Female immigrants face double discrimination of gender and ethnicity while becoming entrepreneurs. The aim of the paper is to investigate the female empowerment in the host country as a predictor of immigrant women engagement in entrepreneurship.

Based on panel data for European Union countries for years 2006–2021, female immigrant entrepreneurship was modelled by the impact of variables showing the empowerment of women in host countries. Data availability was the determinant regarding the inclusion of 22 countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden were all in the research sample.

Although immigrant entrepreneurship is highly context-oriented and locale-specific (as in the physical setting for relationships among people), some universal patterns for a group of countries are found. A stronger political and managerial position of power for the women in host countries encourages female immigrant entrepreneurship, while the gender pay gap is statistically insignificant.

The originality of the paper is due to the multi-country level and female-focused research perspectives in immigrant entrepreneurship. The study refers to the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity, arguing that the empowerment of women in host countries affects female immigrant entrepreneurship at the macro-level.

This paper aims to refine the concept of community/ethnic resources for migrant communities by focusing on the way ethnic migrant entrepreneurs (EMEs) use co-ethnic-based (CEB) resources in their entrepreneurial activities, taking into account their migration contexts. Migrants are usually considered as disadvantaged individuals given their restricted opportunities in the labor market and in the business arena; thus, they rely on ethnic resources for survival in the host country.

Through Bourdieu’s (1986) forms of capital model, the authors compare the experiences of EMEs from three migrant communities in Malaysia (specifically, the Indonesian, Pakistani and South Korean communities) with regard to their ethnic resources. The authors used a qualitative approach in analyzing our data, which includes interview narratives with 41 individuals consisting of EMEs, community leaders, embassy representatives and trade experts.

This study’s findings indicate that migration contexts influence the differences in the way ethnic resources are used by EMEs. The findings are synthesized into a framework of ethnic resources within the context of ethnic migrant entrepreneurship.

Adopting a qualitative approach was useful in studying the subject, but the findings are still limited within the context of the study. As such, future research is encouraged to test the proposed framework and examine the underexplored aspects of migration in influencing the utilization of ethnic resources for entrepreneurial migrant communities.

A practical implication of this paper lies in the illustration of migrants’ usage of alternative routes for resources through co-ethnic networks, which is useful for policymakers and businesses focusing on migration and trade.

This framework contributes to the discourse of ethnic migrant entrepreneurship through further clarifying aspects shaping the utilization of community ethnic resources.