Characteristics of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Their Involvement in International New Ventures

Schlosser, Francine; Zolin, Roxanne

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2954218

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Researchers have examined these programs in various settings and under various conditions. Some of this research presents models that highlight these contexts [21][22][23] in which immigrant entrepreneurship has a significant role in the economic development of local communities [24,25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Sweden: The Liability of Newness

Barth

Zalkat

2020

Sustainability

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Immigrant entrepreneurs face many challenges in the various early phases of their companies’ existence. These challenges are often referred to as “the liability of newness”. While some of these challenges are common to all entrepreneurs, the immigrant entrepreneur has an additional set of challenges. This article describes those challenges in the immigrant entrepreneurial experience in the Swedish agri-food industry. A qualitative research design is used. Interviews were conducted with 25 immigrant entrepreneurs who planned a business, had started a business, or had exited a business. Various websites and tax reports provided secondary data. The research, which covered a two-year time frame, identifies the strategies and actions the immigrant entrepreneurs adopted and used to try to overcome those challenges. The following strategies and actions were identified: use of business support, virtual embeddedness, family and ethnic groups, entrepreneurial experience, and niche markets. The companies in which the entrepreneurs recognized the gravity of those challenges early in their life cycle were more likely to survive beyond the start-up phase. The article, which also reviews much of the current literature on immigrant entrepreneurship, has implications for business support advisory services and policymakers who are involved in the effort to achieve economic (and social-cultural) integration of immigrants into their host countries.

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