How Do Nationalism and Immigrant Entrepreneur Assimilation Impact Firms' Survival?

Abstract

Resource dependence theory posits that firms are dependent on their environment for survival. Firms' survival becomes challenging when the environment changes and affects the supply of critical resources and firms' network of interdependencies. One proposed mechanism to manage resource dependency and increase survival probability is to loosen dependencies on other firms. We extend the literature and investigate the circumstances under which tightly coupled interfirm linkages and high dependencies reduce uncertainty and increase firms' survival. We focus on immigrant-owned firms in the context of rising nationalism and propose that nationalism impose constraints on immigrant-owned firms' transnational and international networks. Consequently, immigrant-owned firms' survival becomes highly dependent on developing a network of interdependencies with firms in the domestic market. Yet, firms' attributes on which immigrant-owned firms create their dependencies on and the extent of immigrant entrepreneur assimilation have differing effects on firms' survival.