Entrepreneurial Process from the Perspective of Different Generations of Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Recent research on immigrant entrepreneurship affirms that immigrants should not be treated as one entity, and thus attention has been directed towards groups of immigrant entrepreneurs that were previously neglected in the literature. One such group is the second generation children of immigrants. There is limited research on similarities and differences in the entrepreneurial experiences of first and second generation immigrant entrepreneurs. This paper uses the mixed-embeddedness approach to develop understanding of how different generations of immigrant entrepreneurs experience the entrepreneurial process. Using a grounded theory approach and qualitative in-depth interviews with Lebanese immigrant entrepreneurs in two large cities in Canada, we propose two conceptual models grounded in the data. The first portrays the similarities and differences in the micro and macro level enablers/obstacles experienced by first and second generation immigrant entrepreneurs, and the second portrays how the two diffe...