Transnational Entrepreneurship Research Articles

What does a Goat Have to Do with Development? Diasporas, IT, and the Case of Thamel.com*

Considerable untapped resources are available to foster base-of-thepyramid (BOP) business development, including the intersection of diasporas, information technology, and transnational entrepreneurs who capitalize on both.1 Diasporas represent an enormous fund of human capital. Recent estimates of global economic remittances place them on a par with total ofacial development assistance (estimated at $70 billion per year in 2004, $125 billion in 2005, and $176 billion in 2006) (World Bank, 2004, 2005, 2006). In addition, information technology is affording access to new markets and opportunities for the co-creation of value throughout the developed world. Why not in developing countries? This paper examines one such example. Thamel.com’s business model links the Nepali diaspora with their families and loved ones, while nurturing local businesses and turning a proat. Its unique combination of home market services, remittance services, and business development services demonstrates how diasporas and information technology can change the landscape of BOP opportunities. Thamel.com’s story provides lessons not only for other diaspora entrepreneurs, it also illustrates how many of the common challenges to developing BOP markets can be overcome. Such lessons can provide the fodder for continuing creativity as the global community seeks to generate employment and reduce poverty under the most challenging circumstances. Before describing the case, a brief review of diasporas and key concepts on BOP markets is in order.

ROOTS AND WINGS: GLOCALIZED NETWORKS AND TRANSNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

This work aims to develop a systematic understanding of how glocalized networks of intensive local embeddedness and far-flung global connections facilitate transnational entrepreneurship. We used mixed methods to triangulate qualitative and quantitative data. The interview data reveal that glocalized networks enable entrepreneurs to discover and enact on opportunities across geographic boundaries. These findings are supported by the survey data that the geographic configuration of networks has distinct impact on transnational entrepreneurship, independent of brokerage, network closure, and weak ties. The research demonstrates the potential of glocalized networks for understanding border-crossing economic action such as transnational and international entrepreneurship.

The security of Africans beyond borders: migration, remittances and London's transnational entrepreneurs

This article provides an overview of selected aspects of how the economic security of growing numbers of Africans is linked to international migration. It first examines the emergence since 2005 of a new international policy discourse emphasizing the positive economic benefits of migration through remittance flows, the transfer of ideas and inward investment by migrants. The article outlines European policy responses to the recent upsurge in illegal Africa migration across the Mediterranean and examines the reaction of African governments and the Africa Union to increased migration and the enhanced dependence of African economies on remittance flows. The final section highlights the way in which the accelerated settlement of Africans in the UK prefigures longer term changes in the UK's relationship with Africa.

Hegemonic Masculinities in East and West Germany (German Democratic Republic and Federal Republic of Germany)

Proceeding from Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity, this article examines the effect of differing social structures and culturally dominant patterns on masculinities in the German states, separated until 1989, German Democratic Republic and Federal Republic of Germany. The article starts with interviews with East German men, who were questioned about their understanding of masculinity and their view of the differences compared with West German men. The results of the interviews are analyzed against the background of the differing social developments in both German countries. Two different hegemonic patterns are identified: the hegemonic masculinity in West Germany is described as a pattern oriented on the lifestyle and aesthetic standard of modern middle classes and transnational entrepreneurship, while the hegemonic masculinity in the former German Democratic Republic is shaped through a proletarian-petty bourgeois lifestyle and taste. The thesis is formulated that after the unification of the two countries, the proletarian-petty bourgeois pattern lost its hegemonic role and, compared with the West German pattern of masculinity, has become marginalized.

Nicaraguans in Miami-Dade County: Immigration, Incorporation, and Transnational Entrepreneurship

This article examines major characteristics of immigration from Nicaragua to Miami Dade County (MDC). It focuses on the post-revolution period and addresses issues pertaining to major immigration trends and labor market incorporation in light of certain characteristics such as human capital, gender, and immigration status. The ethnic economy of Nicaraguans in MDC is studied against a backdrop of labor market incorporation and immigrant entrepreneurship theories by placing them in a transnational perspective. It demonstrates that Nicaraguans have not developed an “ethnic enclave,” a “trade-oriented community,” or a “middleman minority.” Elements of all three types coexist among Nicaraguans in a truncated fashion in an entrepreneurial formation framed by increasing transnationalism, since the early 1990s. The article addresses several empirical and theoretical issues on these topics.

TRANSNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: TOWARD A UNIFYING THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.

This paper seeks to develop a unifying analytical framework to advance the study of Transnational Entrepreneurship (TE), which refers to the processes of creating and growing new business ventures ...

The New Chinese Immigration to Japan

Over the past two decades, Chinese students in large numbers have settled in Japan: a rate of immigration recalling that of the early twentieth century. The inflow has brought about the creation of a Chinese community whose members are highly qualified and economically well integrated into society. Japan’s new Chinese residents are intellectuals by profession. Their lifestyle and the way they present themselves set them apart from traditional immigrants. The concepts of “transnational entrepreneurs” and “expatriates” are called on here to account for the connections they maintain with China and Japan.

Transnational Entrepreneurship: Exploring Determinants and Impacts of a Dutch-Based Filipino Immigrant Business

Remittances typically receive the most attention from sending governments as a resource for national economic development. However, evidence shows that migrants increasingly maintain other types of relations with the home region that may have more potential to contribute to sustainable economic growth. This paper explores transnational entrepreneurship as one of these newly emerging cross-border relations. It draws upon existing studies on transnational entrepreneurship and provides an overview of the factors that explain its emergence and its (potential) significance or impact on the home society. It situates this particular form of transnational migrant engagement within the broader process of transnationalization. Based on a case study of transnational entrepreneurship initiated by a Dutch-based Filipina, I aim to illustrate how such an activity can contribute to -or even initiate- the development of broader transnational involvements. This case study thus sheds light on how an individual migrant's business connections can affect the lives of people in the origin region.

Shifts in the European Discourses on Migration and Development

The issue of migration and development is currently high on the agenda of both development agencies and research institutes in several European countries. It used to be discussed during the 1960/1970s within a framework which, among others, comprised push-and pull factors in migration, brain drain, remittances and return migration. Its return on the development agenda occurs within the context of European post-modern societies, globalization and transnationalism. Key notions now are remittances and foreign direct investment, knowledge transfer, brain gain, transnational entrepreneurship and diasporas. This paper aims to explain the shifts in paradigms and discourses, with reference to the European Union, and particularly in the Netherlands and Germany. Research efforts and policy documents were scrutinized to trace the shifts in discourses. Moreover, the role of different actors in the debate -government agencies, migrant organizations, development funding agencies, and research institutes — is explored. Although some comparisons were made with similar situations in other parts of the world, the paper focuses on Asia-Europe migration. Although the migration and development debate has acquired a more positive tone, the recognition of the potential of diasporas for development varies by country context and policies have yet to integrate migration and development issues in their frameworks.

Chinese transnational entrepreneurs in Budapest and Belgrade: Seeking the markets in the transition economies

Central and Southeastern European countries have witnessed a new phenomenon in the last two decades - Chinese migration that has qualitatively and quantitatively different characteristics in comparison with previous periods and other regions. Chinese migrants today are transnational migrants in terms of everyday practices and economic transactions performed in transnational social space. Their transnational entrepreneurship is the example par excellence of dual embedded ness that clearly joins the economic processes taking place in the sending country together with those in the receiving countries. The aim of this essay is to draw attention to the certain elements of this new phenomenon in Serbia and Montenegro, as well as to reveal the patterns of its enlargement that networks more than one receiving country.

Immigrant transnational entrepreneurs in New York

The structuration model linking macro‐ and micro‐level societal structures and individual actions in a reciprocal causality is applied to the analysis of the relationship between immigrants' transnational entrepreneurship and their assimilation to the host society. Depending on immigrants' economic and sociocultural resources and their location in the economic and political structures of the host city/country where they reside and the home‐country/region they originate from, their transnational business engagements may combine with assimilation and ethnic entrepreneurship may not lead to integration into the host society. This argument is empirically illustrated by comparing three kinds of entrepreneurship and the (trans)national/ethnic commitments they generate. These three types are represented by New York Chinese global traders, Jamaican ethnic entrepreneurs, and Dominican small‐scale investors in home‐country businesses. Although these entrepreneurial activities do not exhaust the types of business pursued by these immigrants (there are also in New York local Chinese and Dominican entrepreneurs, and Jamaicans involved in business in their home‐country), they have been recognized and investigated in each group.

Revisiting Ethnic Entrepreneurship: Convergencies, Controversies, and Conceptual Advancements

In the past thirty years, many concepts and theories on ethnic entrepreneurship have been developed, challenged, and revised to provide a fuller account of the phenomenon. This article revisits the existing literature to address some of the conceptual and methodological issues and the controversies that have lingered around them and to highlight important advancements that have broken through conventional frameworks of this lasting subject matter. It first reexamines the meaning and analytical distinction of such relevant concepts as the middleman minority, ethnic economy, and enclave economy, arguing that ethnic social structures in which entrepreneurs are embedded must be stressed in the understanding of these concepts. It then draws attention to the convergencies and controversies in research on the causes and consequences of entrepreneurship. Finally, it highlights two interrelated conceptual advancements in the study of ethnic entrepreneurship – transnational entrepreneurship and the synergy of entrepreneurship in community building.

A case of capital-rich under- development: The paradoxical consequences of successful transnational entrepreneurship from Mirpur

No other district in Pakistan has seen a higher proportion of its population engage in transnational migration than Mirpur, and from nowhere else have a higher proportion of such migrants successfully established themselves in Britain. Yet despite the intensity of the trans-local linkages which have thereby been created, and the huge flow of remit tance capital into a district which otherwise occupies a thoroughly marginalised position on the global periphery, in no way has this served to stimulate any kind of sustainable pattern of economic development. This article sets out to place these developments in their appropriate historical, political, environmental, local and global contexts in an effort to establish how and why it is that the Mirpuris'otherwise sophisticated and suc cessful entrepreneurial capabilities have not led to more successful and sustainable outcomes in their home base. There are good reasons why the lessons that can be learned in Mirpur could well be applicable elsewhere.

Transnational Communities and the Evolution of Global Production Networks: The Cases of Taiwan, China and India

Transnational entrepreneurs--US-educated immigrant engineers whose activities span national borders--are creating new economic opportunities for formerly peripheral economies around the world. As talented immigrants who have studied and worked in the USA return to their home countries to take advantage of promising new economic opportunities they are building technical communities that link regions in the developing world to the leading centers of information and communications technologies in the USA. This paper examines the cases of Taiwan, India and China to suggest that these transnational entrepreneurs and their communities provide a significant mechanism for the international diffusion of knowledge and the creation and upgrading of local capabilities--one that is distinct from, but complementary to, global production networks.

Transnational Entrepreneurs: An Alternative Form of Immigrant Economic Adaptation

The recent literature on immigrant transnationalism points to an alternative form of economic adaptation of foreign minorities in advanced societies that is based on the mobilization of their cross-country social networks. Case studies have noted the phenomenon's potential significance for immigrant integration into receiving countries and for the economic development in countries of origin. Despite their suggestive character, these studies consistently sample on the dependent variable (trans-nationalism), failing to establish the empirical existence of these activities beyond a few descriptive examples and their possible determinants. These issues are addressed using a survey designed explicitly for this purpose and conducted among selected Latin immigrant groups in the United States. Although immigrant trans-nationalism has received little attention in the mainstream sociological literature so far, it has the potential of altering the character of the new ethnic communities spawned by contemporary immigration. The empirical existence of transnationalism is examined on the basis of discriminant functions of migrant characteristics, and the relative probabilities of engaging in these kinds of activities is established based on hypotheses drawn from the literature. Implications for the sociology of immigration as well as for broader sociological theories of the economy are discussed.

Transnational Entrepreneurs: An Alternative Form of Immigrant Economic Adaptation

The recent literature on immigrant transnationalism points to an alternative form of economic adaptation of foreign minorities in advanced societies that is based on the mobilization of their cross-country social networks. Case studies have noted the phenomenon's potential significance for immigrant integration into receiving countries and for the economic development in countries of origin. Despite their suggestive character, these studies consistently sample on the dependent variable (transnationalism), failing to establish the empirical existence of these activities beyond a few descriptive examples and their possible determinants. These issues are addressed using a survey designed explicitly for this purpose and conducted among selected Latin immigrant groups in the United States. Although immigrant transnationalism has received little attention in the mainstream sociological literature so far, it has the potential of altering the character of the new ethnic communities spawned by contemporary immigration. The empirical existence of transnationalism is examined on the basis of discriminant functions of migrant characteristics, and the relative probabilities of engaging in these kinds of activities is established based on hypotheses drawn from the literature. Implications for the sociology of immigration as well as for broader sociological theories of the economy are discussed. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea

Review: Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea By Lasse Ringius Reviewed by Umar Karim Mirza Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Pakistan Lasse Ringius. Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. 261 pp. ISBN 0-262-68118-8 (paperback). US$23.95. Acid-free paper. Most studies of environmental regimes focus on the use of power, the pursuit of rational self-interest, and the influence of scientific knowledge. This book focuses instead on the influence of public ideas and policy entrepreneurs, and makes a significant contribution by showing that, under certain circumstances, regimes can be created and changed by a combination of powerful but highly oversimplified public ideas and transnational political entrepreneurs. The careful analysis of the creation of the global ocean dumping regime in 1972 and its transformation in 1993 to include a ban on the disposal at sea of radioactive waste, persuasively demonstrates the importance of public ideas, transnational coalitions of policy entrepreneurs, and environmental non-governmental organizations. The analysis contains important insights for international environmental policy. Ringius shows how transnational coalitions of policy entrepreneurs can build environmental regimes, and how global non-governmental organizations can act as catalysts for regime change. In this first book-length empirical study of the formation of the global ocean dumping regime in 1972 and its subsequent development, Ringius describes the structure within which global ocean dumping policy, particularly with regard to the disposal of radioactive waste, is embedded. He also examines the political construction of ocean dumping as a global environmental problem, the role of persuasion and communication in an international setting, and the formation of international public opinion. He argues not that the influence of ideas alone explains how regimes develop, but rather that it is necessary to understand how actors, interests, and ideas together influence regimes and international environmental policy. In telling the story of how an environmental organization initiated a regime for regulating radioactive waste disposal that went against both scientific consensus and the interests of powerful states and yet ultimately triumphed, this book challenges important conventional wisdom about how international environmental regulation happens. Ringius shows the power of public ideas and policy entrepreneurs in international negotiations in a way that has implications far beyond this particular case. Forceful ideas and committed

Radioactive waste disposal at sea: public ideas, transnational policy entrepreneurs, and environmental regimes

Radioactive waste disposal at sea: public ideas, transnational policy entrepreneurs, and environmental regimes

The malleable homo sovieticus: transnational entrepreneurs in post-communist East Central Europe

This paper investigates the coping strategies of post-1989 East Central European transnational migrant entrepreneurs. Paradoxically, rather than facilitating transfer into the region of liberal-democratic orientations and practices, the incorporation of East Central Europe into late 20th-century consumer capitalism based on short-cycle flexible production in sectors unregulated by legal-institutional frameworks reproduces some of the features of the accustomed homo sovieticus syndrome: in particular, the reliance on the beat-the-system/bend-the-rules orientation on informal/crony patronage and connections, and immediate consumption rather than deferred gratification/investment-oriented capital accumulation renders effective strategies of economic action in the new situation. The effects of so-informed transnational migrant entrepreneurs' activities on the transformation processes in their home-countries are also discussed.

The Otavalo trade diaspora: social capital and transnational entrepreneurship

This article examines the role of historical social resources in the development of a transnational trade diaspora of Ecuador's indigenous Otavalan merchants. The Otavalans are well known for their production of handicrafts, using pre-industrial and industrial technologies, and for their far-flung trips in search of foreign buyers. In this account, the role of 'social capital', typically defined as a 'public good', is highlighted to better gauge its usefulness to other migrant and indigenous groups. I conclude that the Otavalo case suggests that in-group 'social capital' is: (a) not sufficient or necessary for 'grass-roots' transnational entrepreneurship; (b) the political origins of an ethnic group's 'trust-worthiness' reveal a more diverse set of symbolic and cultural 'capitals', which may then be used by an emergent merchant class to gain financial capital for a business venture; and (c) 'globalization' notwithstanding, contemporary trade diasporas may rise and fall due to similar causal dynamics found among much older and ubiquitous 'cross-cultural trade diasporas'.