Mixed Embeddedness Research Articles

Explaining differences in entrepreneurial activity between immigrants and natives: moderating roles of economic, sociocultural and institutional factors

PurposeThis study investigates the differential likelihood of being an entrepreneur among immigrants to and natives of a country. Using a mixed embeddedness perspective, the authors outline how economic, sociocultural, and institutional embeddedness influence the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity exhibited by immigrant and native residents.Design/methodology/approachThe tests of the hypotheses rely on a multilevel cross-country research design that uses secondary data from different sources.FindingsCompared with their native counterparts, immigrants are more likely to start and run their own businesses, and an array of environmental factors influences this likelihood. The level of economic development and equality laws increase it; the abundance of market opportunities in an economy, entrepreneurship culture and cultural collectivism diminish it.Practical implicationsThe findings provide policy makers and stakeholders with valuable insights into pertinent environmental factors that determine the differential propensities of immigrant and native residents to become entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThis study provides an expanded understanding of the connection between being an immigrant and entrepreneurial activity, by explicating the influences of country-level conditions.

Cold grass or hot sands? A comparative study of immigrant Punjabi–Pakistani entrepreneurs in London and Dubai

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to compare immigrant community's business start‐up experiences in ethnic enclaves of London (UK) and Dubai (UAE). The primary data were collected through 20 in‐depth semi‐structured interviews (10 from each country) identified through personal contact networks and snowball sampling approaches in each country. The data were collected from November 2020 to March 2021 and analyzed using the template analysis approach. The findings reveal positive and ambitious business start‐up motivations and experiences among a psychologically “transient” migrant community in the UAE, despite starting their business under stricter business start‐up regulations in comparison with the UK sample where adverse motivations for business start‐up were reported with negative business start‐up experiences among a “naturalized” migrant community with comparatively liberal business start‐up regulations. This study contributes to the empirical cross‐national studies in immigrant entrepreneurship and provides impetus to the mixed embeddedness model while also reviving the seminal works of Phizacklea and Ram as a continuation of a stagnant discourse on cross‐national ethnic entrepreneurship.

Thwarted or Facilitated? The Entrepreneurial Aspirations and Capabilities of New Migrants in the UK

This article draws on biographical interviews with migrants to assess their aspirations and capabilities to become entrepreneurs. By augmenting mixed embeddedness emphasis on contextual factors with Sen’s capabilities framework, we contribute to extant sociological debates on the interaction of structure and agency, the conceptualisation of aspirations, the non-pecuniary aspects of entrepreneurship and the role of institutions in neoliberal Britain. We argue that structural barriers drive the formation of aspirations to become entrepreneurs while at the same time limit their capabilities to do so. Entrepreneurial agency must be seen as relative autonomy, effective in strategic decision making but limited to the weak financial position in which migrant entrepreneurs operate.

Mixed embeddedness and entrepreneurship beyond new venture creation: Opportunity tensions in the case of reregulated public markets

The mixed embeddedness (ME) perspective offers a holistic approach to understanding entrepreneurship as embedded in a myriad of contexts. Alone, however, it is not capable of explaining the dynamic interrelations between entrepreneurship and opportunity structures beyond venture start-up. We offer a synthesis between ME and the dynamic states approach, using the concept of opportunity tension to explore the recursive interplay between entrepreneurial agency and opportunity structures. The integrated approach is applied to, and developed by drawing upon, the case of ethnic minority entrepreneurship in the changing Swedish welfare state following customer choice reform. We explore opportunity tensions that arise during start-up, growth and exit for two firms that provide care for the elderly in public quasi-markets. We develop concepts that account for different patterns of embeddedness and opportunity tensions as well as bottom-up effects of entrepreneurship in terms of reregulation and conclude that the interplay amounts to a paradox of ethnicity.

Chinese microentrepreneurs in industrial cluster in Italy: analysis of the ethnic microenterprises’ performance

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the distinctive economic and social dynamics of ethnic quasi-enclave industrial sub-clusters and to econometrically analyse the main factors affecting the economic performance of Chinese-migrant microentrepreneurs with a specific focus on social capital.Design/methodology/approachAn interpretative framework that encompasses sustainable local human development and mixed embeddedness is applied to a case study of Wenzhounese migrant socioeconomic quasi-enclave leather industrial sub-clusters located adjacent to the industrial district area of Florence, Italy. Given the complexity of the phenomenon, the research study adopted a mixed-method approach encompassing both qualitative and quantitative methods. The econometric analysis was based on data collected via a survey administered to a random sample of enterprises.FindingsEthnic social capital plays a central role in ethnic entrepreneurship. The results confirm the relevance of social networks in the context analysed and reveal the importance of ethnic and non-ethnic business social capital as one of the main factors affecting enterprise’s economic performance.Practical implicationsThe findings propose potential policies to upgrade the ethnic enterprises especially in terms of increasing their formality and inclusion in the Italian social and economic systems of production.Originality/valueThis analysis contributes to existing literature on migrant entrepreneurship and communities, adding new evidence related to ethnic enterprises and the importance of social capital in terms of performance and working conditions of the community of entrepreneurs.

Extending mixed embeddedness to a multi-dimensional concept of transnational entrepreneurship

Migrant entrepreneurship in times of transnational migration go beyond locally serving markets and increasingly operate transnationally. The mixed embeddedness by Kloosterman and Rath has become the main concept to analyze such migrants’ entrepreneurship as it accounts for the multiple embeddedness of entrepreneurs in the variety of social and institutional contexts at multiple levels. This concept, however, does not yet accommodate the transnational dimensions of migrant entrepreneurship, which is still rather nascent in entrepreneurship research. Transnationalism is multi-dimensional in its nature as pointed out by migration researchers as Vertovec, and transnational migrants’ embeddedness appears to go beyond the notion of being simply dually embedded in two locations but rather should be conceived as being in one larger transnational field—though such aspects are not conceptually accounted in the mixed embeddedness approach. Taking this as a starting point, we propose to analyze the conditions that allow migrant entrepreneurs to engage in transnational activities. Our proposed framework bases on empirical research with 36 Polish entrepreneurs in the EU labor market, by drawing their opportunities from different levels and contexts of transnationalism. Following the research question on which levels and dimensions of embeddedness in the transnational field contribute to transnational entrepreneurship, we develop a novel refined framework of mixed embeddedness to analyze transnational entrepreneurship. It clarifies the entrepreneurial context by analytically and systematically subdividing components across dimensions (political, social and economic), and rearranging institutional elements and structures in each dimension according to respective levels (macro, meso, and micro). Emphasizing the role of conditions at the meso-level, the novel analytical framework better incorporates the multi-dimensionality and multi-levelling of transnational entrepreneurial activities of migrants. This model can be used as a tool for future comparative analyses of migrant entrepreneurship in different transnational contexts, it also contributes to the concretization of the transnational nature of transnational migrant entrepreneurship.

Immigrants’ Entrepreneurship: Analytical Overview of Foreign Approaches

Entrepreneurial activity of immigrants is a fairly new phenomenon for Russian reality which explains both the paucity of empirical works and the practically absence of a holistic view of theoretical and methodological foundations for such studies in Russian social science. The article aims to fill this gap and offer an analytical overview of the main foreign theoretical approaches to the immigrant entrepreneurship. The review is structured according to the main thematic issues in connection with which as a rule the peculiarities of immigrant entrepreneurship are discussed, which distinguish them from other types of entrepreneurship. The article sequentially examines approaches to the study of factors, group and individual characteristics of immigrants that promote or limit the development of their entrepreneurial activity; special attention is paid to the history of the study and (re)assessment of the role that ethnicity plays in migrant entrepreneurship; finally, the spatial aspect of the entrepreneurial activity of migrants is analyzed. Among the theoretical approaches special attention is paid to interactive theory, theory of mixed embeddedness, theory of ethnic economics, concepts of middleman, enclave economy, positioning, scaling and placement, as well as more modern concepts of glocalized networks, multifocality and transnational mixed embeddedness.

The multi‐scalar embeddedness of support policies for migrant entrepreneurship in Japan

AbstractContextual entrepreneurship and mixed embeddedness approach alike emphasize the importance of the political‐institutional embeddedness next to social embeddedness along with further contexts for migrant entrepreneurship, yet the aspect of international migration policies as an important institutional framework has been somewhat neglected. This paper introduces the case of political‐institutional embeddedness of migrant entrepreneurship in Japan from an international migration policy perspective, discussing embeddedness of migrant entrepreneurs and their support institutions from a multi‐scalar perspective. By analysing the migration policy context of migrant entrepreneurship at different policy levels, that is, national, regional and urban scales, it demonstrates the analytical value of differentiating policies along these scales and also their inter‐connectedness, conceptually proposing the inter‐ and trans‐scalarity of these policy contexts. By bringing issues of migration regimes and particularly the East Asian developmental state as a lens to analyse migrant entrepreneurship, it brings further approaches in comparatively analysing different entrepreneurial contexts for future research.

Theorizing Disembedding and Re-Embedding: Resource Mobilization in Refugee Entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT Forced displacement drastically changes the nature of refugees’ connection to their home countries and requires them to build new ties to their host countries. While refugees undergo the dynamic transformation of their embeddedness after arriving in host countries, previous studies on refugee entrepreneurship have not sufficiently examined the dynamic and procedural nature of refugees’ embeddedness and its influence on their entrepreneurial activities. This study seeks to understand how the process of embedding influences refugees’ resource mobilization in their entrepreneurial activities. Based on 20 interviews with refugee entrepreneurs in Germany, this study revealed that forced detachment from home-country contexts led to a loss of certain resources while simultaneously creating opportunities for refugees to develop resources by building new connections. This study challenges the conventional structural deterministic approach of mixed embeddedness and theorizes disembedding and re-embedding processes of refugee entrepreneurs. The findings suggest that these processes require a cognitive process on the part of entrepreneurial agents to become aware of a loss of resources and to reinterpret the value of their resources. Furthermore, this paper discusses how these processes constrain and enable refugees’ access to resources. The findings offer implications for policymakers of refugee-hosting countries and refugee support organizations.

Swedish migration policy liberalization and new immigrant entrepreneurs

AbstractSweden has allowed immigrants from any country to obtain residence permits for entrepreneurship since 2008. The aim of this study was to explore the outcome of this policy. The study adds time perspective and superdiversity and operationalizes the mixed embeddedness framework to facilitate a quantitative study on three levels of analysis. Detailed register data for two cohorts of immigrants—those who arrived four years before and those who arrived four years after the reform—are used. The results confirm the usefulness of the mixed embeddedness model, that is the institutional regulative context, economic and social context, and individual resources, in the analysis of immigrant entrepreneurship. However, the study shows that the propensity to engage in entrepreneurship is more affected for refugees and students than for migrants with a residence permit for work and entrepreneurship. This indicates a need for further facilitating the process to immigrate for entrepreneurial reasons.

Refugee Subentrepreneurship: The Emergence of a Liquid Cage

This article conceptualises refugees’ endeavours for upward social mobility through subentrepreneurship. Subentrepreneurship refers to various self-employment forms that are undeclared to relevant authorities to escape superimposed historical, temporal, spatial, institutional and social contexts, which constrain actors’ entrepreneurial activities. Using a mixed theoretical underpinning combining Mixed Embeddedness (ME) with Weber’s Iron Cage of Rationality (ICR), we signify liquidity of refugee subentrepreneurship, which is neither linear nor long-term rational. A liquid cage is envisaged to allow more freedom as refugees become embedded within intersections between transformative journeys and Constrained Institutional Contexts (CICs). This new theorising signifies a pronounced emphasis on agency whereby refugees cleverly contemplate implicit skills (i.e. unrecognised or downgraded skills), opportunities and processes to escape CICs. The article adds clarity as to how contexts become part of the production of entrepreneurial actions through two-way interactions that promote liquidity, enabling a strong foundation for future research exploring subentrepreneurship.

Multifocality and opportunity structure: towards a mixed embeddedness model for transnational migrant entrepreneurship

This article addresses transnational migrant entrepreneurship, which refers to migrants involved in cross-border entrepreneurial activities. Previous models and concepts in migrant entrepreneurship studies have not fully succeeded in recognising the role played by differential groups and places in the pursuit of opportunities by transnational migrant entrepreneurs. This is due to a tendency to focus on the country of residence as well as on the inclination to view migrant entrepreneurs as members of a coherent ethnic or national group. To help fill this gap, we propose a new model combining the concept of multifocality, covering the simultaneous involvement of migrant entrepreneurs in both multiple places and multiple groups, with group modes of behaviour as an additional dimension influencing the opportunity structure. The case of Moroccan transnational entrepreneurs in Amsterdam shows that the role of multifocality in place, in combination with group modes of behaviour, is critical when it comes to pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities.

Agency and Social Relations in the Search for a Better Life: Female Migrant Entrepreneurs in Poland

Dynamic changes and the increasing diversity of migrant societies support small-scale enclave businesses in Poland. Female migrants from Belarus and Ukraine appear to have found their niche in the beauty and cosmetology sector. Nevertheless, their entrepreneurship goes beyond the enclave market. Specialists provide services to migrant communities and simultaneously target Polish clients to ensure the success of their ventures. This article presents the results of qualitative research based on 13 in-depth interviews with Ukrainian and Belarusian beauty specialists. I focus on these businesswomen’s narratives about their entrepreneurial trajectories. My aim is to explore how they use and extend their social relationships in order to acquire entrepreneurial agency. Entrepreneurship can be understood as a socially embedded practice. I apply an intersectionality approach to investigate the complexity of socially constructed identities and the dimensions of individual entrepreneurial agency. Incorporating a mixed embeddedness approach, I examine the impact of structural factors on entrepreneurial activity and the importance of social networks for women’s self-realisation as independent beauty specialists.

The Linkage Between Ethnicity and Opportunity Recognition: A Case Study of Micro-Women Entrepreneurs

This paper examines the opportunity recognition of micro-women entrepreneurs by investigating the linkages of opportunity recognition with ethnicity. This study focuses on the cultural theory and the theory of mixed embeddedness as two of the most frequently used theories in ethnic entrepreneurship literature. Micro-women business operators from three main ethnicities in Sri Lanka: Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim operating in a selected locality have been chosen as the participants of the study. The data were gathered through face-to-face in-depth interviews using a topic guide. The data were analyzed adopting three simultaneous stages: within-case analysis, cross-case analysis, and comparison of findings with the theory. The findings revealed five themes; support from family, social networking, culture, and geographical location that influence the micro-women business of different ethnicities to recognize business opportunities. Also, findings showed that there are several similarities and differences identified among ethnic micro women business operators when recognizing an opportunity. The findings further revealed that opportunities for women of one ethnicity are not opportunities for women of another ethnicity due to their ethnicity-related specific contextual factors.

Transnational, translocal, and transient: Economic communities of Arab entrepreneurs in Yiwu, China

AbstractDespite an accumulation of literature on ethnic, immigrant, and transnational entrepreneurship, we still know very little about transnational entrepreneurship among less‐developed countries especially when culture and religion are concerned. Based on long‐term ethnographic work in immigrant Arab communities, this study examines the economic communities of transnational Arab entrepreneurs in Yiwu, a global wholesale hub city in China. We find that the motivation of profit‐seeking and transitional chain migration set the premise and foundation for Arab immigrant communities. The transnational networks of kinship and geo‐relationship are further integrated with Arab entrepreneurs' translocal networks based on religion, culture, profession, and educational experiences in shaping the economic activities of Arab entrepreneurs. At the same time, taking profit‐seeking as the primary goal instead of evident political and religious pursuits, their experiences also feature with transiency under the current institutional constraints. This study provides different evidence of transnational mixed embeddedness of immigrant ethnic entrepreneurship from a less‐developed economy where the state has a dominant role in economic, cultural, and political control.

Socio and ethno-cultural embeddedness of transnational Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs in Ghana

Transnational Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs have been in Ghana for a long time, operating by utilizing a wide range of resources available to them. Key among these resources are their own socio and ethno-cultural norms which have yet to be explored in the existing scholarship. We explore these patterns and norms in the articulation of transnational entrepreneurship among these immigrants in Ghana. We do this by relying on qualitative data gathered through in-depth interviews, observations and market conversations—with 41 Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs in Accra, Kumasi, and Ashaiman. We argue that these transnational Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs in Ghana are embedded in their own ‘socio and ethno-cultural heritage’. This argument is anchored in multiple logics. First is the notion of transnational entrepreneurial activity that is ethnically and culturally inspired. Secondly, these entrepreneurship activities are inextricably embedded in informality and intensely rely on informal power brokerage system. Thirdly, there is an embeddedness in the entrepreneurs’ own traditional apprenticeship system. These lines of socio and ethno-cultural embeddedness provide useful pathways for understanding not only the operations and future prospects but also the patterns of transnational (mixed) embeddedness of the Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs in Ghana.

Scaling for Social Enterprise Development: A Mixed Embeddedness Perspective on Two Dutch Non-Profit Organisations

This article addresses ways in which the scaling strategies of two Dutch non-profit organisations (NPOs) impact their pathways to social enterprise development. The NPOs under investigation seek to address the intertwined issues of hunger, food waste and environmental protection. Comparing and contrasting the two cases, the article discusses the strategies conducive to social enterprise development and the obstacles encountered. Underlying this analysis is a mixed embeddedness perspective which revolves around organisational structure in tandem with institutional pressures affecting the outcome of scaling strategies. So doing, this article makes a contribution to the burgeoning literature on impact scaling, in particular the significance of scaling strategies in the transition of NPOs to social enterprise.

What happens to refugee-origin entrepreneurs? Combining mixed embeddedness and strategy perspectives in a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT Whilst it is acknowledged that refugees are more likely to select into self-employment due to discrimination and labour market exclusion, we know little about how their ventures perform over time. To address this gap, we draw upon qualitative longitudinal evidence gathered in 2010 and 2018 in the UK to explore the outcomes of their ventures and what strategies they have put in place. We argue that the trajectories of refugee-owned businesses are explained by their structural position and the strategies, resources, and business support networks, highlighting that refugee entrepreneurs re-work their condition in a manner that is much more proactive and resilient than suggested by extant portrayals of refugee entrepreneurship. Our analysis sheds new light on the dynamics of refugee business development and encourages a more nuanced theoretical approach to evaluate these enterprises as vehicles for integration against the backdrop of neoliberal Britain.

Gender and Transnational Dynamics in Immigrant Entrepreneurship

Abstract Immigrant enterprises, especially those in the service sector of the urban economy, are largely gendered and seemingly localized. However, the intersection of gender and transnationalism is often overlooked in the research literature. To fill this gap, we draw on the literature of mixed embeddedness and transnationalism to advance an analytical framework of simultaneous embeddedness to explain the gendered pattern of immigrant entrepreneurship. We do so by taking an in-depth look at a female-dominant industry – Chinese-owned nail salons in New York City. Using data collected from face-to-face interviews and on-site observations in New York City, as well as archival records and media reports about labor-market dynamics in both the United States and China, we find that the development of Chinese-owned nail salons is shaped by contextual factors in both home and host countries beyond socioeconomic characteristics of individual entrepreneurs. Home-country factors in China include labor-force demographics, access to economic opportunities, and the gap between education and career aspiration among young women. These home-country factors are intertwined with changes in US immigration policy, local labor-market reception, and gender discrimination, which function to exacerbate the problem of labor shortage for Chinese-owned nail salons in New York City. We discuss the significance of simultaneous embeddedness and gender in understanding contemporary immigrant entrepreneurship.

Female entrepreneurship in emerging markets: challenges of running a business in turbulent contexts and times

PurposeThe present study seeks to investigate female entrepreneurship in turbulent times (COVID-19) and contexts (emerging markets).Design/methodology/approachAn in-depth, multiple-firm (five SMEs), cross-country (2 countries – Brazil and Tunisia), cross-region (Latin America and the MENA region) case study based on a mixed embeddedness perspective.FindingsThe study highlights how challenges and uncertainties are managed, what inspires female entrepreneurs and what frightens them. We capture these entrepreneurs' insecurities, self-doubts and creative survival strategies. Our findings reinforce the need for self-efficacy and resilience, as well as the importance of a support network and the ability to “reboot” whenever needed. Despite persistent patriarchal norms and cultures, the women surveyed did not see themselves as female entrepreneurs but as successful entrepreneurs, akin to their male counterparts.Research limitations/implicationsAcademically, the study contributes to the fields of entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship and crisis management with empirical evidence in new contexts (LATAM and MENA regions) and times (collected during a crisis). The results also contribute in a practical way to female entrepreneurs, policy makers and global agencies.Originality/valueThe study's originality arises from a qualitative cross-country comparison of findings from internationally minded companies from under-researched developing countries and regions at an especially interesting and turbulent time: the pandemic of 2020.