Transnational Embeddedness: Transnational Activities and Networks among First- and Second-Generation Immigrant Entrepreneurs in the Netherlands

Abstract

During the past decade or more, transnationalism has become a central concept in migration literature. However, research on the question of whether the second generation is transnationally involved remains limited, and is mainly focused on the cultural and not on the economic domain of transnationalism. In this article I explore the transnational activities of first- and second-generation immigrant entrepreneurs in the Netherlands. Analysis shows that embeddedness in transnational networks remains important for the second generation, yet the extent of it is less compared to the first generation. This study points to the fact that not every entrepreneur is or can be transnationally active; ‘transnational capital’, which not everyone automatically possesses, is needed to be able to do business with the country of origin.