Breaking Boundaries: Exploring the Process of Intersective Market Activity of Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the Context of High Economic Inequality

Abstract

We explore immigrant entrepreneurship using structuration theory to understand how migrant-led venture creation conducts socially-intersective market activity in the host country of high economic inequality and social exclusion. Applying Gidden's structuration theory to immigrant entrepreneurship (1994), we unravel the co-evolutionary process of both the entrepreneurial agent and the social structure of the host country via three phases of venture creation. We collected and examined original and longitudinal empirical data of eight South African-based immigrant entrepreneurs using a process-oriented theory-building approach. Our findings unveil a process by which home and host institutions shape immigrant entrepreneurial agency to identify non-ethnic business opportunities and to form relationships across diverse actors that counter existing norms of intergroup segregation and hostility. The process illustrates how an immigrant's social orientation to his/her host country's structure changes over time, and symbiotically, how the immigrant entrepreneur's actions -which break socially constructed boundaries -also change the social structure.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Inequality: An Introduction to the Journal of Management Studies Special Issue

“…As Newbert () suggests, a partial reading of Smith may have contributed to inequality but a holistic reading of his work will likely help us find the cure. Similarly, as Griffin‐El and Olabisi () show us, a holistic approach to immigration will likely encourage diversity in ethnicity, generatively stimulate entrepreneurship, and help to heal long‐standing divisions in society.…”

“…Lest our special issue be seen as pessimistic, overly focusing on how inequality is created and sustained, we note that at least one of our contributions offers a degree of optimism. Examining how the incursion of immigrant African entrepreneurs into South Africa helped to erode existing structures of inequality, Griffin‐El and Olabisi () demonstrate how talk can disrupt inequality. The authors identify three key mechanisms by which institutionalized inequality can be eroded; through the creation of new cognitions or categories of actors, through the creation of new practices of business, and through idiosyncratic interpretations of what were previously taken‐for‐granted ways of conducting business.…”

Why Hurry? The Slow Process of High Growth in Women-Owned Businesses in a Resource-Scarce Context

“…Embeddedness positively influences entrepreneurial expectations through access to resources and entrepreneurial agency (Datta and Gailey ; Griffin‐El and Olabisi ; Manolova et al ). Although government policies in Cameroon do not sufficiently facilitate business registration and taxation or access to finance from regulated financial institutions (Stevenson and St‐Onge ), there are notable attempts to support women’s entrepreneurship.…”

“…Performation constitute the behaviors, choices, and actions, and can be identified by examining the formal and informal practices in firms created by women entrepreneurs (Welter ). The practices in turn reveal women entrepreneurs’ growth strategies as either high‐growth (ambitious) or low‐growth (status quo) (Gundry and Welsch ) and their wealth creation potential through entrepreneurship (Griffin‐El and Olabisi ). Second, the conditions for path dependency necessitate two possible path creation decisions, namely, initial conditions plus contingency (chance encounters, trial and errors) and self‐reinforcement (lock‐in) situations in which alternatives are highly unattractive (Vergne and Durand ).…”

Social entrepreneurship based on personal unmet needs: Lead user characteristics’ influences on nascent social entrepreneurs

“…New life experiences can occur owing to exogenous events, which can result in new knowledge that can trigger opportunity recognition (Grégoire et al, 2010;Shepherd & Patzelt, 2018). Personal experiences and personality characteristics influence how a refugee makes meaning of their new situation and places them in a position to identify unique opportunities that others may not recognize (Griffin-El & Olabisi, 2017). Prior knowledge helps to explain why certain individuals are more prone to entrepreneurship than others as well as why certain individuals develop prosocial orientations (Shepherd & Patzelt, 2018).…”