Transnational, Ethnic and Returnee Entrepreneurship: Perspectives on SME Internationalization

Abstract

The concept of transnational entrepreneurship (TE) has attracted much attention in scholarly literature in recent times. Transnational entrepreneurs have a bifocal orientation and maintain business and personal relationships in two different geographical spaces spanning across national borders (i.e. in their home and host countries) while running their enterprises. Returnee entrepreneurship (RE) deals with entrepreneurs who establish enterprises in their home countries on returning from host countries after having gained educational or business experience. While TE is a first step towards international entrepreneurship (IE), ethnic entrepreneurship (EE) is another facet that links TE and returnee entrepreneurship (RE) through the facilitating role played by the diaspora community comprising immigrants from the home country. This chapter provides an overview of the research on TE, RE and ethnic entrepreneurship and explains how they are facilitated by the diaspora of the new generation of opportunity and capability-based immigrants. It further provides an overview of the different theories about SME internationalization with special reference to transnational and returnee entrepreneurs. The concluding part of this chapter explains the role played by different factors such as market/political conditions, technological developments, production networks, social networks and human capital in facilitating or posing challenges to the internationalization process of SMEs, especially of TEs and REs.