In her explorative study that is based on data from 62 qualitative interviews, Elena Sommer examines the use of social capital for entrepreneurial activities of self-employed migrants from the former Soviet Union in Germany. She analyses what type of social capital is used by migrants as a resource for the formation and development of small businesses and how entrepreneurial social networks of migrants change over time. The study illustrates that the use of business-related social relationships of the interviewed self-employed depends on the company's market strategy as well as on access to relevant social networks.
In their efforts to mobilize the resources they need to start and run their businesses, pioneer entrepreneurs from a first-generation, low-resource immigrant community exemplify the interactive relationship between social capital and social networks: the individual social capital entrepreneurs have affects their position within a network, and their network position shapes how much access to latent social capital they have. Throughout this dissertation, I use concepts from social network analysis to describe the structural aspects of migrant entrepreneurs' relationships. I also draw on extensive ethnographic data to understand the social context and decision-making processes that surround migration, settlement, and entrepreneurial outcomes. I tell a processual story, creating a "life-cycle" of immigration, settlement, labor market incorporation, and entrepreneurship. Each stage requires different forms of social capital and transforms an actor's social network differently. Different amounts of legal capital, which refers to the kind and quality of legal status a migrant has, also affect migrants' microeconomic behavior and the structure and composition of their social network. The process of assembling the people and resources needed to start a business in a first-generation immigrant community without ethnic resources or shareable capital elevates a pioneer entrepreneur's network topography - the combination of their structural social capital and their aggregate social capital - both within and externally to their co-ethnic network. Consistent with existent findings on immigrant entrepreneurship, I find that pioneer entrepreneurs depend on strong, bonding ties with family members in their business operations. However, I also find that pioneer entrepreneurs in the formal economy depend substantially on ties with non-co-ethnic partners to start and run their businesses. As such, they are the vanguard of their communities' social and economic incorporation into American society. Framing migrants' social networks as a dependent variable offers new insights into the ways that broad social forces shape microeconomic behaviors and enable or constrain incorporation. In so doing, I show that pioneer entrepreneurs' relationships are dynamic, diverse, responsive to new social and economic contexts, and resilient.
Social Capital and Entrepreneurship concludes by examining the tension between the properties of social networks used in entrepreneurship researchers' models and the limited perspective on networks available to practicing entrepreneurs.
Given the strong migration trends in our society all over the years, this handbook addresses the upcoming topic of migrant entrepreneurship in all its colourful facets. Migration, ethnic minorities, and related phenomena are currently the subject of intensive scholarly discussion and a heated public debate. Migrant entrepreneurship is a powerful issue within this debate as it creates numerous chances for both migrants and societies - despite significant challenges. In 19 chapters scholars from different disciplines and countries shed light on the phenomenon of migrant entrepreneurship. Long traditions of studies have resulted in the diversity of topics and approaches applied by scholars, and the handbook offers a systematization of research efforts. It also aims to explore future research avenues by providing inspirations. Three types of readers can benefit from this handbook: researchers, professionals (including policymakers), and students from around the world.
Through a global series of case studies, this pioneering book delves into refugee entrepreneurship - a major economic, political and social issue emerging as a top priority. Stories from Australia, Germany, Pakistan and many other countries, highlight the obstacles facing refugees as they try to integrate and set up businesses in their new countries. Engaging contributions set the stage for a cross-analysis of the particularities and limitations faced by refugee entrepreneurs, culminating in an extended discussion about the future implications of refugee entrepreneurship for theory, policy and practice. This interdisciplinary book explores the motivations and drivers of refugee entrepreneurship, making it an insightful read not only for those engaged in entrepreneurship, but also for those interested in migration studies from a variety of academic disciplines.
Given the diversification of global migration patterns, the increased importance attributed to knowledge and innovation for economic development, and the rise of social policy regimes that emphasise self-responsibility, migrant entrepreneurship has become a widely discussed form of migrant incorporation in both policy and social sciences. Particularly in North America and Europe, policy advisors have drafted special programmes and regulations aimed at self-employed migrants, while social scientists have also come up with a vast body of research, although it has not been exempt from certain controversies and biases. Migrant entrepreneurship has frequently been associated either with rags-to-riches success stories or with unremunerative hard work and marginalised social positions. Also, a great deal of research has strongly and consistently focused on entrepreneurial cultures and ethnic bonds related to ethnic entrepreneurship, and consequently other forms of migrant self-employment have been given only given scant attention. Yet, more recently, other aspects, including institutional embeddedness and gender, have become important focal points of research studies and have opened up new, promising avenues to explore the phenomenon. This book offers a comprehensive up-to-date overview of the research area covering migrant entrepreneurship and self-employment, in addition to investigating the skills of migrant entrepreneurs departing from the question: which migrants become self-employed, the highly skilled ones (due to their excellence) or the ones with a low skill endowment (because they cannot find a satisfying employment in the labour market)? Moreover, the included case study on highly skilled Peruvian migrant micro-entrepreneurs in Switzerland demonstrates the complex interplay of elements at work before and during the business foundation, such as an unsatisfying socio-economic integration, the search for social recognition and agency, the reconfiguration of gender roles, and the availability of resources to exploit transnational business opportunities.
In the past few years, a considerable number of immigrants have established their own businesses. In doing so, they have contributed in many ways to the economic development of American and European metropolitan areas. Some businesses have been incorporated into the mainstream, while others have stayed on the economic fringes and got engaged in the informal economy. The starting point of this book is that a proper understanding of these businesses is served by focusing on the embeddedness of immigrant businesses in their economic, politico-institutional and social environments from a multi-disciplinary perspective rather than confining the attention to ethnic-cultural or economic sociological aspects only.
A decade in preparation, Immigrant Entrepreneurs offers the most comprehensive case study ever completed of the causes and consequences of immigrant business ownership. Koreans are the most entrepreneurial of America's new immigrants. By the mid-1970s Americans had already become aware that Korean immigrants were opening, buying, and operating numerous business enterprises in major cities. When Koreans flourished in small business, Americans wanted to know how immigrants could find lucrative business opportunities where native-born Americans could not. Somewhat later, when Korean-black conflicts surfaced in a number of cities, Americans also began to fear the implications for intergroup relations of immigrant entrepreneurs who start in the middle rather than at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. Nowhere was immigrant enterprise more obvious or impressive than in Los Angeles, the world's largest Korean settlement outside of Korea and America's premier city of small business. Analyzing both the short-run and the long-run causes of Korean entrepreneurship, the authors explain why the Koreans could find, acquire, and operate small business firms more easily than could native-born residents. They also provide a context for distinguishing clashes of culture and clashes of interest which cause black-Korean tensions in cities, and for framing effective policies to minimize the tensions.
This Special Issue aims to provide an extensive mapping of policies in the promotion of ethnic entrepreneurship in a number of countries. It is motivated by the desire of national and municipal Governments to create an environment conducive to setting up and developing SMEs in general and immigrant businesses in particular. Furthermore it also highlights how the third sector has also had a crucial role in the reinforcement of immigrant entrepreneurship, and provides indications of how best to address this issue at a Governmental level in the future.
