Immigrant Entrepreneurs Research Articles

Intercultural Experience as a Unique Facilitator of Immigrant Entrepreneurship

ABSTRACTThis study seeks to unpack some underlying factors for immigrant entrepreneurial success. Specifically, we develop an integrative framework for immigrant entrepreneurship utilizing three key pillars or building blocks: home–host cultural asymmetry (related to cultural distance), home–host cultural integration (related to cultural interface), and immigrant entrepreneurship (related to adaptive learning). Through a phenomenon‐driven research approach, our study finds (1) when the home‐cultural heritage and family values interface with host country's cultural values, such interface is likely to have significant effects on the process of immigrant entrepreneurship; (2) immigrant entrepreneurs may go through the same sequential stages of cultural shock and cultural adaptation that other immigrants do; (3) we further find that immigrant entrepreneurs' business success may depend on a process of effective intercultural integration, with the process of intercultural integration that may shape the microfoundations of immigrant entrepreneurship and the choice of entrepreneurial strategy. Our study contributes to the growing research streams on immigrant entrepreneurship: the specific intercultural integration for immigrant entrepreneurship and the unique microfoundations of immigrant entrepreneurship.

Microlevel analysis of how itinerant immigrant entrepreneurs underwrite local economic development in an African city

ABSTRACT Itinerant merchants are actively involved in various economic activities within and around African cities, albeit on a small scale. However, there remains a gap in understanding their contribution to host cities’ local economic development (LED). This research aims to fill this gap by examining how itinerant immigrant retailers support LED in host cities, using Wa in Ghana. Recognising their role is essential for informing location-specific development plans to boost local economies. Employing a qualitative research approach, we interviewed 52 participants, including itinerant immigrants, city residents, and officials from relevant state agencies. Thematic analysis using NVivo version 11 was employed to analyse the responses. Itinerant merchants play a crucial role in local economies by creating employment opportunities, providing income sources for residents, ensuring convenient access to goods and services, and contributing to market diversification. We discuss how these insights could inform LED policies and planning in sub-Saharan Africa.

Perspectives on Necessity-Driven Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Interactions with Entrepreneurial Ecosystems through the Lens of Dynamic Capabilities

This paper explores the interaction between immigrant small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the entrepreneurial ecosystems of their home and host countries. These SMEs, often established out of necessity due to economic hardship or unemployment, contrast with opportunity-driven ventures that seek to exploit new market prospects. Employing a dynamic capabilities framework, the study investigates how immigrant SMEs identify and mobilize critical resources in unstable environments, and how these resources are dynamically adapted and transformed to meet organizational objectives while responding to ecosystem changes, ultimately cultivating competitive advantages. Interviews were conducted with 25 immigrant entrepreneurs from eight countries, and the interviews took place within their business environments, with native speakers of the interviewees′ home countries present to ensure accuracy and authenticity. The findings highlight that immigrant entrepreneurs effectively leverage resources from both home and host country ecosystems, with human capital being the most essential asset. Additionally, the role of immigrants′ social networks is emphasized as a crucial mechanism for resource acquisition. This study further illustrates the positive contributions of immigrant enterprises to entrepreneurial ecosystems, revealing a co-evolutionary relationship whereby the businesses and ecosystems both mutually evolve. This co-evolution strengthens the resilience and sustainability of immigrant ventures, significantly enhancing their long-term success.

Home Country Work Experience and Immigrant Self-Employment in the United States

Immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States has grown steadily in the last four decades. In this paper, I study the occupational choices of legal permanent residents and their associated earnings in paid and self-employment. Using a unique data set with pre- and postmigration individual-level information, I analyze the role of home country work experience of immigrants in their probability of becoming entrepreneurs and their earnings after migration. To control for endogenous sector selection in the estimation of earnings distributions, I follow a novel identification strategy based on extremal quantile regressions that does not require exclusion restrictions or a large support variable. I find that foreign work experience in paid and self-employment is an important predictor of entrepreneurship after migration. In addition, it impacts earnings in the United States but differently across sectors, controlling for human capital, assimilation, time, region of origin, U.S. destination, previous migratory status, and demographic characteristics. Overall, my results highlight the role played by immigrants’ labor market history from their home countries to better understand their outcomes in the United States.

Exploring the role of ethnic networking ties in immigrant entrepreneurship: a comprehensive review and research agenda

Exploring the role of ethnic networking ties in immigrant entrepreneurship: a comprehensive review and research agenda

Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Europe: Insights from a Bibliometric Analysis

Immigrant entrepreneurs and their activities have received constantly increasing attention from academics and policymakers. While immigrant entrepreneurship is not new as an activity, with the globalization and development of technology, this field is at a different level, becoming one of the most popular avenues in entrepreneurship literature and playing a significant role in the economy, especially in a context like Europe. However, among emerging research attention, this field is becoming more diverse, complex, and confusing. Thus, literature reviews in this field are becoming critical to the overview of the field.Our study aims to provide an overview of academic research on Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Europe. An extensive bibliometric analysis was conducted to complete this, including bibliometric performance and graphic mapping of academic contribution in this field. A comprehensive performance analysis was carried out to pinpoint key authors, institutions, journals, and countries that are leading in shaping the landscape of research and development in this field. Furthermore, we use VOS viewer and R Biblioshiny software to graphically map the field. We do this by applying author co-citation and co-word analysis. Our research contributes to immigrant entrepreneurship literature by providing a better understanding of the phenomena in Europe and, based on the outcomes, directions for future research in the field.

Double Discrimination: Attitudes toward Syrian and Ukrainian Immigrant Entrepreneurs' Job Postings in Türkiye

This study uses a vignette experiment to examine the discriminatory attitudes towards immigrant entrepreneurs. The aim is to assess how biases based on ethnicity affect the job application intentions directed towards immigrant entrepreneurs, specifically comparing those from Syria and Ukraine with their Turkish counterparts. The research addresses several objectives: to determine whether discriminatory practices against immigrant entrepreneurs differ from those faced by immigrant workers; to explore the presence and nature of discrimination against immigrant entrepreneurs in Türkiye, including taste-based and statistical forms of discrimination; to investigate potential double discrimination between entrepreneurs of Middle Eastern (Syria) and European (Ukraine) origins; and to analyze whether ethnic cues in job advertisements influence job application intentions. Findings reveal that immigrant entrepreneurs experience significant discrimination, with Syrian entrepreneurs facing more bias compared to Ukrainians, influenced by geopolitical and cultural factors. This study offers a new perspective by examining how potential applicants respond to job advertisements from immigrant entrepreneurs, differing from previous research on discrimination faced by immigrant workers. The results highlight the need for inclusive policies and practices to support immigrant entrepreneurs and enhance their participation in the Turkish economy, contributing to a more equitable and diverse entrepreneurial landscape.

Women Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Their Legitimation Strategies: The Role of Digital Technologies

Women Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Their Legitimation Strategies: The Role of Digital Technologies

Immigrant women entrepreneurship research: mapping the field

Purpose Immigrant entrepreneurship, particularly immigrant women entrepreneurship, has recently gained socioeconomic attention. However, this issue does not seem to have found proper recognition yet within academic management studies. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to develop a rigorous and comprehensive historical overview of the field, highlighting the key research issues that scholars are following to date and the most intriguing research directions worthy of further development. Design/methodology/approach To reach its goal, the paper develops a systematic literature review based on the rigorous criteria of 83 papers focused on immigrant women entrepreneurs. Findings Findings from this study highlight that some relevant arguments related to immigrant women entrepreneurs should deserve more in-depth investigation. As an example, a clear understanding of those factors positively affecting immigrant women firms’ performance is currently missing and it may help to gain knowledge that is able to effectively support such firms. Moreover, there is a strong need to go beyond the tolerance and proclamations toward the relevance of immigrant women entrepreneurs to really understand and manage the differences and ethnic resources that immigrants have and, therefore, overcome their marginalization. Originality/value This research enhances a clear understanding of issues related to immigrant women entrepreneurship. The advancement, in terms of knowledge, of such a pivotal topic for today’s economies helps both scholars and policymakers in better targeting education plans as well as in planning ad hoc support and targeted policies, management, entrepreneurship, gender, women entrepreneurs and immigrant entrepreneurship.

Exploring network typology and their role in immigrant entrepreneurship: insights from South Africa

Purpose This study aims to explore network typology and the role of networks in immigrant entrepreneurs’ (IEs) business operations in South Africa (SA). Design/methodology/approach In-depth interviews were carried out with 25 IEs operating their business ventures in SA, selected via the purposive sampling method. Findings The findings indicated that IEs in SA use social networks most often, with minimal use of international business networks. In addition, the findings showed that IE networks’ key roles include providing them with access to referrals and resource provision. However, whilst resource provision emerged as a significant role, finance appeared as the main resource provided by networks. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this original paper provided theoretical and empirical contributions to research on network typology and its role for IEs. Thus, the study extended the current literature on the intersection of IEs and their networking behaviours.

Ethnic Foods and Immigrant Entrepreneurship: The Production and Marketing of Korean Foods in Toronto, Canada

Ethnic Foods and Immigrant Entrepreneurship: The Production and Marketing of Korean Foods in Toronto, Canada

Technology oriented, service intensive, transnational entrepreneurs' international target market strategies

This instrumental case study's objective is to understand the target market strategies of technology oriented, service intensive, transnational entrepreneurs (TEs). Existing studies featuring the merits of ‘concentration versus spreading’ target market strategies provide mixed findings, typically involving firms with product oriented as opposed to service intensive business models. Furthermore, prior research focuses on export-oriented owner-managers as opposed to TEs who have capabilities associated with being socially embedded across different countries. Interview data features the practices of 15 TEs, whose businesses involved information and knowledge-based solutions. Specifically, first generation UK-based South Asian immigrant entrepreneurs who are socially embedded in both their country of origin and country of settlement. Unique insights contribute to a microfoundational cultural perspective of business-to-business (B2B) practices, regarding a new generation of TEs, being relatively highly educated, experienced, and technologically oriented. New evidence builds on dated prior studies often featuring lower skilled and less experienced immigrant entrepreneurs in low-tech, service-oriented sectors. The choice of TEs' target market strategy is not necessarily binary in nature, whereby the importance of decision-makers possessing the ability to pivot strategies is evidenced. To varying degrees, certain TEs employ an ambidextrous approach, concentrating on key markets and entering/exiting others perceived as peripheral.

International Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Tourism Industry: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Immigrant entrepreneurship is particularly important for tourism destinations that create innovative, ethnic and new-to-the-market tourism products and offerings since the international immigrant entrepreneurs’ culture, values, and traditions are novel to the country they operate in. Hence, the purpose of this study is to systematically examine the current literature on tourism immigrant entrepreneurship and present related study areas. The findings of the study revealed that there are only 102 articles in the literature related to immigrant entrepreneurship in the tourism industry, which highlights a gap in the literature. Most of the studies are concentrated in the general tourism field rather than specific sectors of the industry like travel or F&B. Methodologies of the articles show that most of the studies utilize qualitative research techniques, mainly comparative case studies and in-depth interviews. Number of quantitative studies is quite low and most of them are empirical. From a managerial point of view, the lack of studies in these areas is proof that there is a niche market for immigrant entrepreneurship in tourism sector, which can easily be filled by practitioners. Especially in countries such as Turkey, Italy and Greece, practitioners will significantly benefit from the findings of this study.

Determinants of Middle Eastern immigrants’ entrepreneurial success in Australia

This paper presents findings on Middle Eastern immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia. The extent to which perceived discrimination and acculturation influence their social and psychological capital, and the effects of social and psychological capital on their firm performance, are explored. We found that such immigrants, who are highly acculturated to the mainstream culture, not only tend to have many social interactions outside their community but also possess strong psychological capital. Although perceived discrimination has been associated with low social involvement outside an immigrant community, we found that perceived discrimination does not exert a statistically significant effect on psychological capital. Importantly, both social and psychological capital are found to exert positive effects on firm performance. The findings have implications for enhancing the capacity of policy makers to provide high impact to immigrant entrepreneurs. Specific interventions are suggested to assist such entrepreneurs to leverage their social and psychological capital.

Beyond mixed embeddedness: Multilevel personal networks of migrant entrepreneurs in Naples and Manchester

AbstractThis article analyses immigrant entrepreneurship in different urban contexts and recognizes its significant impact on the economic and sociocultural development of cities. Immigrant entrepreneurs are often concentrated in neighbourhoods and promote diversified economic activities. The mixed embeddedness (ME) framework highlights the complex interplay of contextual, economic and institutional factors that shape immigrant entrepreneurship. As a source of social capital, entrepreneurial networks provide access to resources and opportunities. Despite all progress, the systematic analysis and quantification of embeddedness among immigrant entrepreneurs remains a challenge. This article aims to understand how different urban contexts shape various entrepreneurial strategies by quantifying forms of embeddedness. To pursue this goal, we examined the entrepreneurial strategies of Sri Lankans in Rione Sanità (Naples, Italy) and Pakistani entrepreneurs in Rusholme (Manchester, United Kingdom). By using social network analysis, this article reveals distinct forms of embeddedness and how the characteristics of urban contexts and groups simultaneously help define differences in entrepreneurial strategies.

How life-shock experiences drive immigrant entrepreneurs

How life-shock experiences drive immigrant entrepreneurs

Relational capital and immigrant entrepreneurship in Italy

Relational capital and immigrant entrepreneurship in Italy

From shopping centers to cultural centers: Los Angeles strip malls as sites of ethnic and immigrant placemaking

ABSTRACT The strip mall is a ubiquitous urban design type formed by a strip of commercial establishments on a single parcel of land that surround an open, street-facing parking lot. We hypothesize that they are important sites for ethnic and immigrant businesses in LA and, in particular, that their relatively low rents, location, and design (including site layout, unit size, and structure quality) are particularly conducive for ethnic cultural placemaking. Using data about the built environment, real estate market, and our own original “EthniCITY” spatial database of race/ethnicity placemaking patterns in Los Angeles, we use mapping and spatial analysis, descriptive statistics, a hedonic price model, and groundtruthing fieldwork to find that small and medium-sized strip malls are important ethnic places in Los Angeles, hosting the most ethnic commercial establishments amongst all commercial building types. We also find that half of all small strip malls are located within ethnic cultural hubs. Our findings suggest that physical urban design matters in shaping the cultural life of cities and the geographic opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurship.

The growth potential of Palestinian family businesses: immigrant versus home-country entrepreneurship

PurposeThis project aims to examine how entrepreneurial orientation and succession planning among Palestinian family businesses positively affects their associated growth potential, considering the mediating role of innovation and the moderation effect of geographic location. Leveraging ethnic entrepreneurship theory, the authors compare these types of enterprises in the USA with their counterparts in Palestine.Design/methodology/approachThis cross-sectional quantitative research analyzes data collected from October through December 2022. 180 Palestinian family-owned firms completed a survey; 90 companies were located in Palestine, while the other 90 were in the USA. Structural equation modeling analysis was conducted using Smart-PLS4. The interrelations of the conceptual framework were examined via path analysis and bootstrapping techniques.FindingsThe authors found a statistically significant positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on Palestinian family business growth; the authors’ results concurrently indicated succession planning did not affect growth within the authors’ selected population. The authors also discovered innovation mediates the relationship between orientation and growth, and business location appears to moderate this relationship. The authors’ research indicates geography appears to favor Palestinian family-owned companies in the USA, where the authors found opportunity-driven immigrant entrepreneurs benefit from the structured business systems in a highly-developed country.Originality/valueGiven the current situation in Palestine, it is essential to understand the potential contribution that Palestinian family-owned businesses globally can make to reconstruct the country’s local economy. The next few years will be critical in figuring out how innovative thinking can boost the region’s recovery and increase Palestinian-based family companies’ ability to engage in sustainable entrepreneurship with reinvestment support from its diaspora. Therefore, it is important to have research that identifies factors that could improve these businesses’ continued performance and growth potential. This study also aids in further understanding the defining characteristics of Palestinian-owned family firms, enhancing general theories related to entrepreneurship among ethnic and diasporic groups.

The Innovative Entrepreneurial Marketing Journey and Sustainable Development of Southeast Asian Immigrants

The southeast Asian new immigrants face significant barriers in employment due to language and cultural differences, making it challenging for them to find jobs. Consequently, many southeast Asian immigrants have turned to entrepreneurship as a means to achieve economic independence and contribute to their family’s income. This study adopts entrepreneurial marketing (EM) as a theoretical lens and utilizes a process research methodology, based on sequentially ordered events, to explore the entrepreneurial journey of immigrant micro and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Employing purposive sampling, twenty-two southeast Asian immigrant entrepreneurs were selected for in-depth interviews to ensure data quality through multiple data collection methods. The research developed a dynamic adjustment model and management mechanisms for the entrepreneurial marketing of immigrant micro and SMEs. These findings not only bridge theoretical gaps in immigrant entrepreneurship strategy but also deepen the academic understanding of the dynamism in entrepreneurial marketing. Practically, the outcomes assist immigrant micro and small business entrepreneurs in developing operational strategies and serve as a reference for governmental units in crafting immigrant policies.