BACKGROUND The business environment in Finland is easy and efficient. The public and private sector are both committed to investing in research and development and the country's highly educated people have a positive can-do attitude towards innovation. Finland has a free-market economy with a highly industrialised manufacturing sector. AREA At 338,000 square kilometres, Finland is the seventh largest country in Europe in terms of area. The landscape is dominated by lakes and forests and Finland is sparsely populated with 15.7 inhabitants per square kilometre. POPULATION The population of Finland is 5.5 million. 67% of people live in towns or urban areas and 33% in rural areas. The majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region.

Immigrant entrepreneurs are in a disadvantaged positi on in the Arcti c Lapland. According to previous studies (see Yeasmin, 2016), there are many factors that hinder the sustainability of immigrant business. Immigrant entrepreneurs lack socioeconomic and politi cal knowledge along with many other hindrances. Broadening knowledge and combining strong and weak ti es (Granovett er, 1985) are positi ve factors among many other mixed factors relati ng to operati ng a business successfully. Sustainable immigrant entrepreneurship practi ces require legiti macy between entrepreneurial acti ons and opportunity recogniti on. Research on sustainable immigrant entrepreneurship does not fi t into a single literature body and it is diffi cult to make a single model for the growth potenti al of immigrant entrepreneurship in Lapland (Yeasmin, 2016). Therefore, the focus of this study is to create an integrated value for immigrant entrepreneurs by combining the CSR theory and mix embeddedness theory, and fi nd an alternati ve concept of practi ce for understanding the drivers that can sustain the micro businesses of immigrants in Lapland and can give an explanati on on opportuniti es recogniti on which can be embedded so as to get access to the necessary entrepreneurial capital (local, regional or nati onal). This study argues that the degree of CSR embeddedness could be developed as a component of mixed embeddedness supports the discovery of insti tuti onal, social and economic opportunity strategy amongst immigrant entrepreneurs. Conceptually, this study explores adapti ve factors that immigrant entrepreneurs are determined to embed (whether knowingly) as mixed practi ces that create entrepreneurial success.

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Many immigrants are either underemployed or unemployed in Lapland, and indeed many of them are long-term unemployed. This unemployment rate among immigrants varies from region to region in Finland. As a disadvantaged group in the labour market, sometimes they are pushed into establishing a business; however, their motivation to do so is weak, due to a lack of market understanding along with other socio-cultural factors. As an alternative way of doing business and gaining access to the labour market, social enterprise could be another instrument for employment. We studied whether Social Entrepreneurship (SE) represents an exceptional mindset among the group. SE invention for this group of people is a less-studied area of research in Finland compared to many other European countries such as Sweden and Scotland. Our research examines whether SE could be a way to facilitate the integration of immigrants, particularly immigrant women, who are at risk of marginalisation, into the Finnish labour market in the near future, with Lapland as a case study. We analyse the factors that can be taken into account to enable immigrants to conduct their business under the guidance of a social enterprise in the northern part of Finland, thereby shaping their employability for the future.

The increasing diversity in northern Finland calls for innovative ways to support the development of immigrant children's sociocultural skills so that they may improve their integration and active participation in Finnish society. Validating their competencies and recognising their academic and soft skills within non-formal learning environments can ease this integration and participation outside of school hours. This study explored special measures that can encourage young people to participate in the local community and in wider social work and assessed the roles that organisations play in providing non-formal education. In 2018, this qualitative research study conducted a focus group discussion amongst stakeholders (N = 40) in Rovaniemi, Finland. The results indicated that nonformal education and the recognition of the skills that children acquired through it resembled experiential learning, which can empower individuals. While non-formal education and learning are considered to be effective tools for empowering and encouraging participation from immigrant children, these terms require more explicit definition and development.