Serendipitous Discovery or Deliberate Search: The Case of Latin-American Immigrants in Barcelona

Abstract

In the vast literature of immigrant entrepreneurship, there are some approaches trying to explain this phenomenon. Nonetheless, little attention is paid to the discovery process of entrepreneurial opportunities among immigrants, which represents an important milestone in the process. In this sense, this study contributes to the growing body of knowledge related to immigrant entrepreneurship, through a qualitative study on the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities by immigrants. An exploration is performed taking into account the two major approaches to explain the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities: 'Alertness' and 'Systematical Search'. Our sample is formed of eight cases of Latin-American immigrants; five are entrepreneurs and three are potential entrepreneurs. Results show Latin-American immigrants of our sample tend to search systematically for entrepreneurial opportunities, considering their prior knowledge, such as experience and information acquired in the migration periods. The contribution of this paper is to shed some light on the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities among immigrants, who are involved in the catering sector in Barcelona.