Chinese Immigrant Entrepreneurs Research Articles

A Study of Identity Transition of Chinese Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada

By studying a group of Chinese immigrants who came to Canada as skilled workers but successfully changed their identity to become entrepreneurs, I delineated a process model of entrepreneurial identity construction. My findings revealed that the development of entrepreneurial identity went through three stages: exploring possible self, crafting the new identity, and consolidating identity through self-narrative. I then discussed how voluntary identity construction differed from role transitions within and across established organizations.

Yang and Yin: How Do Immigrant Entrepreneurs Manage the Contradictions of Family Roles?

This study attempts to answer important questions about the role of family for immigrant entrepreneurs by drawing on a qualitative approach that relies on in-depth interviews with Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs and their spouses from 18 businesses. The data is then analyzed using the grounded theory approach. The study reveals that family plays its roles in four different ways; those roles exist in a contradictory form and are explained by Yin-Yang philosophy. In addition, we identify five strategies that the entrepreneurs employ to cope with the contradictions of family roles.

Immigrant Place Entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, 1970–99

Proclamations of the death of Los Angeles’ growth machine are premature. These proclamations overlook the growing role of immigrant Korean and Chinese entrepreneurs in regional property development. Since 1970, Korean and Chinese entrepreneurs have seriously restructured Los Angeles’ morphology, creating hierarchically arranged residential and business clusters for co–ethnic immigrants. Koreatown and Monterey Park are the brand names most familiar to outsiders, but these prominent localities really coexist with a multiplicity of less well–known ethnic communities that owe their origins to immigrant property developers. The immigrant property developers use the classic methods of the growth machine: buy land cheaply, promote it in Chinese or Korean emigration basins, then sell it to co–ethnic immigrants at a profit. In the process, the immigrant property developers reduce the difficulty of immigration to Los Angeles at the same time that they enhance its perceived desirability. The success of the Chinese and Korean developers highlights the hazard of assuming, as is conventionally done, that ethnic residential clustering arises from leaderless social processes. In both these highlighted cases, entrepreneurial elites created residential clusters of co–ethnics from conscious, long–term plans that required political as well as economic savoir–faire. In so doing, the immigrant property developers joined the Los Angeles growth machine whose fortunes, admittedly, have been waning among the native born population of the region.La mort annoncée de la dynamique de croissance de Los Angeles est prématurée. Ce serait oublier le rôle grandissant des chefs d’entreprise immigrés coréens et chinois dans l’aménagement immobilier régional. Depuis 1970, ces entrepreneurs ont considérablement restructuré la morphologie de Los Angeles, créant des ‘agglomérats’ commerciaux et résidentiels hiérarchisés pour migrants de m?me ethnie. Si Koreatown et Monterey Park sont des noms bien connus des étrangers, ces lieux dominants coexistent en réalité avec une multiplicité de communautés ethniques moins renommées qui doivent leurs origines à des promoteurs immigrés. Ces derniers appliquent les mécanismes classiques de la prospérité: acheter le terrain bon marché, le promouvoir dans des bassins d’émigration chinois ou coréens, puis le vendre à profità des immigrants co–ethniques. Ainsi, les promoteurs immigrés facilitent l’immigration vers Los Angeles tout en en accentuant l’aspect attractif. La réussite des aménageurs chinois et coréens souligne le risque qu’il y a à supposer, comme bien souvent, que tout regroupement résidentiel ethnique naît de processus sociaux non dirigés. Dans les deux cas exposés, les élites commerciales ont créé des regroupements résidentiels de m?me ethnie selon des plans délibérés à long terme, impliquant un savoir–faire à la fois politique et économique. Ce faisant, les promoteurs immigrés ont rejoint la dynamique de croissance de Los Angeles qui, il est vrai, a vu décliner les succès au sein de sa population de souche.

Business opportunity or food pornography?

Maps and analyzes the development of ethnic Chinese food in the city of Antwerp through the ethnography of both Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs and their customers. Most existing studies draw our attention to group characteristics in explaining Chinese immigrant small businesses, predominantly clustered in the catering sector. Some studies examining Chinese immigrants and the development of the catering sector adopt a mixed model of group characteristics and opportunity structures in the broader society. Looks into a hitherto unexplored terrain, namely the relation between the white customer and the immigrant entrepreneur. Such an in‐depth analysis “from within” instructs us about the dynamics of the immigrant/ethnic restaurant business. From the perspective of the immigrant entrepreneur, immigrant/ethnic restaurants provide in many instances an avenue to social mobility, thereby overcoming the general constraints facing immigrants such as insufficient financial capital, low educational levels, linguistic handicap, etc. The economic advancement is the success side, whereas the success has a series of social costs. The social exchange is fraught with ambivalence, which in its most extreme manifestation may turn into what Frank Chin calls “food pornography”. The two dimensions both present in Chinese immigrant restaurant ventures for they provide opportunities with a series of social costs.

Emerging High-Growth Firms and Economic Development Policy

Emerging high-growth firms create the lion’s share of jobs in the United States. Even though these firms are economically important, policy researchers have not studied them to a great extent. This focus section tries to stimulate interest in the issue by reporting results of cutting-edge exploratory research on emerging high-growth firms and public policy. Authors, in turn, explore contributions of Chinese and Indian immigrant entrepreneurs in high-tech Silicon Valley industries, recipients of Small Business Innovation Research awards, connections between home-based businesses and e-commerce, and the Clinton administration’s New Markets Initiative.

Social Capital and Income Attainment among Chinese Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Toronto

New economic sociologists have focused on the positive effect of social capital embedded in the ethnic structure on the individual's economic actions. However, recent studies on middle-class immigrants provide inconsistent support for this view. This study examines the significance of social capital by investigating the relationship between the income attainment of immigrant entrepreneurs on the one hand, and two forms of institutional arrangements, co-ethnic firm linkages and co-ethnic personal recruitment, on the other. We found that social capital embedded in the ethnic structure does not play a significant role in the income attainment of Chinese immigrant business owners in Toronto. Rather class resources and social capital beyond the ethnic structure significantly increase the level of income attainment.

Financing small business creation: The case of Chinese and Korean immigrant entrepreneurs

Conventional wisdom claims that entrepreneurship in the United States among Asian immigrants has been substantially promoted by the operation of rotating credit associations specifically and supportive social networks generally. The rotating credit association (RCA) typifies the process whereby supportive peer and community subgroups assist in the creation and operation of firms by providing social capital in the form of loans. One problem with the RCA as an example of social resources is that there is no solid evidence that it is a major source in financing immigrant-owned firms. This study utilizes data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census to analyze sources and amounts of start-up capital that financed small business creation for immigrant Koreans and Chinese. Data self-reported by over 2,000 Korean/Chinese who opened new firms during 1979–1987 are analyzed and compared with start-up statistics for nonminorities and Asian Americans who are not immigrants. The majority of start-up capital that financed small business formation came from family wealth (equity) and financial institution loans (debt). These financing patterns typified all groups. High levels of start-up capital typify Korean/Chinese immigrant-owned firms, reflecting their heavy reliance upon equity capital to finance small business creation. If no loan funds were forthcoming from friends, rotating credit associations, associates, family, and other secondary debt sources, the average Korean/Chinese start-up would nonetheless possess substantially more financial capital than its nonminority cohort. Looking solely at firms utilizing loan funds to finance business creation, Korean/Chinese borrowers had lower mean loan sizes and lower debt to equity ratios than the comparison group firms: the aggregate debt to equity ratios for nonminorities and Chinese/Korean immigrants were 2.75 and 1.18, respectively. Among the borrowing firms, financial institutions skim off the most attractive Korean/Chinese borrowers, mostly college graduates who invest substantial sums of equity capital into their start-ups. The nonbank borrowers—particularly those borrowing from friends—were most disadvantaged, relative to nonminority small business owners. Controlling for firm and owner characteristics statistically, the Korean/Chinese start-ups borrowing from friends and family were found to be penalized by over $25,000 in loan size, relative to nonminorities, whereas Asian nonimmigrant borrowers incurred no such penalty. Prevailing scholarly literature misinterprets the realities of how Korean and Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs finance entry into small businesses. These firms stand out for their particularly heavy reliance upon family wealth. Nontraditional debt capital sources are of secondary importance, and they are utilized more by the weaker start-ups.

Chinese Family Firms in the San Francisco Bay Area

This study examines the role of ethnicity and kinship in the economic adaptation of Chinese family firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. The development and operation of these Chinese firms are the result of a complex interactive process involving ethnic resources–such as traditional values, kinship relations, and information networks–as well as structural opportunities and constraints. Throughout their history in the Bay Area, Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs have creatively adapted to their social, economic, and political environments with resources from the family.