Limitations of immigrant entrepreneurship research

Abstract

Immigrant entrepreneurship research has, so far, addressed various topics and contributed to the advancement of the overall understanding associated with the entrepreneurial behaviour of immigrants. However, research on this field incorporates several limitations. Based on narrative review of the relevant literature, five limitations associated with immigrant entrepreneurship research were identified: 1) geographical bias (research concentration in a few OECD countries particularly the USA); 2) ethnic limitations (research focus on certain ethnic groups); 3) conceptual misspecification (definitional boundaries have not been properly set); 4) thematic bias (research focus on business antecedents than on business outcomes); 5) methodological bias (dominance of quantitative research and small sampling). Necessary implications have as well been illustrated in this paper. Future researchers need to address these limitations or, at least, avoid replicating them to strengthen the research outputs.