Abstract
Traditional theories deal with ethnic business mainly from the perspectives of structural opportunities and ethnic group characteristics. While they explain very well why some ethnic groups have higher rates of business formation and ownership than others, much less attention has been paid to the role of government policies in regulating the inflow of business immigrants and channelling ethnic entrepreneurs and related resources into different business sectors. Using Canada as a case study, this paper examines how changes in immigration policies have influenced business immigrant flows and ethnic business development (since most ethnic businesses are initiated and run by immigrants). This study found that the recent changes in Canada’s immigration programs have resulted in substantial decrease in the inflow of business immigrants, and may turn many resourceful business immigrants to the competing countries of the U.S., Australia and the UK, which all have more affordable and less restrictive investment requirements. The paper suggests that future studies of ethnic business should be expanded to include immigration policies as an explicit facilitating or restricting factor. Keywords: immigration policy; business immigrants; ethnic business; Canadian immigration
Highlights
Ethnic business refers to commercial enterprises that are owned and operated by members of an ethnic group, and that offer culturally specific and suitable goods to serve the co-ethics of the business owners
Most existing theories deal with ethnic business from the perspectives of labour market discrimination, opportunity structure, and ethnic group characteristics. These theories assume that the ethnic entrepreneurs are already in the “country of immigration”, and aim to explain why some ethnic groups have higher rates of business formation and ownership than others, leading to the development of ethnic economies with high levels of institutional completeness. They are inadequate to explain where the entrepreneurs and their business capital come from, and much less attention has been paid to the role of government policies in recruiting and channelling immigrant entrepreneurs and related resources into ethnic businesses
Business immigration policies regulate the inflows of international entrepreneurs and investors, and channel the associated resources and capital into different economic sectors
Summary
Traditional theories deal with ethnic business mainly from the perspectives of structural opportunities and ethnic group characteristics. While they explain very well why some ethnic groups have higher rates of business formation and ownership than others, much less attention has been paid to the role of government policies in regulating the inflow of business immigrants and channelling ethnic entrepreneurs and related resources into different business sectors. Using Canada as a case study, this paper examines how changes in immigration policies have influenced business immigrant flows and ethnic business development (since most ethnic businesses are initiated and run by immigrants). The paper suggests that future studies of ethnic business should be expanded to include immigration policies as an explicit facilitating or restricting factor.
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