Intercultural resource arbitrageurs: A review and extension of the literature on transnational entrepreneurs

Abstract

This paper takes stock of a decade of empirical insights on transnational entrepreneurs and probes how these uniquely positioned actors leverage a variety of tangible and intangible cultural, social, and economic resources across national borders to create opportunities. We synthesize findings and articulate how transnational entrepreneurs generate constructive approaches and capabilities through their experiences of foreignness, not despite them. We chart how this has implications for mainstream questions of ongoing interest in entrepreneurship more broadly. Our novel contributions to this domain are twofold. We are the first to probe how the intercultural experiences and aptitudes transnational entrepreneurs cultivate enable them to function as valuable resource arbitrageurs for venturing. Second, we explore how their ‘underdog status’ in the home or second-home country contexts oftentimes can inculcate a sociocultural ‘antenna’ for generating innovative outsider insights that can provide advantages over purely domestic or monocultural entrepreneurs.