High-Tech Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the United States

Abstract

This article reports the results of a national survey that estimates the rate of immigrant entrepreneurship in a representative sample of high-impact firms in high-technology industries in the United States. The authors report key descriptive statistics about the companies and their founders. About 16% of the companies in the sample, for instance, number at least one immigrant entrepreneur among their founding teams, while about 77% of the immigrant entrepreneurs are U.S. citizens. Three multivariate analyses are carried out that compare high-impact, high-tech firms that count at least one immigrant in their founding teams with those that were founded by native-born entrepreneurs. It is found that the two groups of firms are similar with respect to economic and technological performance. Immigrant-founded firms are more likely to report that they have a strategic relationship with a foreign firm. The authors conclude by briefly considering the potential implications of their findings for immigration and economic development policy.

Immigrant Entrepreneurs and their Perceived Success in Small Retail Businesses: Preliminary New Zealand Findings

“…In terms of initial start-up sources of capital, finance by personal savings (77.4 percent) is found to be at the top of the list followed by relatives (15.2 percent). This finding confirms some of the earlier evidence of Marger & Hoffman (1992), Fairlie (2008) Hart & Acs (2011) who emphasised further that family and friend networks extended to fellow countrymen provide a much more comfortable environment to immigrant entrepreneurs, in addition to raising capital for the starting up stage of a business.…”

“…Those entrepreneurs who use contemporary technological advances have surpassed those entrepreneurs who are less reliant on the use of information and technology (Hart & Acs, 2011).…”

Human Capital in Low-Tech Manufacturing: The Geography of the Knowledge Economy in Denmark

“…Zucker et al, 1998;Murphy & Siedschlag, 2011) and various studies focus on the relationship between highly skilled labour, migration and high-tech entrepreneurship (e.g. Wadhwa et al, 2008;Hart & Acs, 2011). In the work of Florida (2002;2003), the relation between the creative class and high-tech industries is even more pronounced.…”

A Structural Equations Model for Assessing the Economic Performance of High-tech Ethnic Entrepreneurs

“…'Alertness' is difficult to measure, but there are other factors, which are also typical prerequisites for recognizing high-tech business opportunities, such as formal knowledge acquired from education and skills gained from work experience (Bullvaag et al, 2006). Hart et al (2009) claim that, even though immigrant entrepreneurs are more alert, more knowledgeable, and more creative, they still face obstacles in recognizing high-tech opportunities that do not challenge most natives. Language proficiency in general is the most important determinant of immigrant success in the labour market (Borjas,1999).…”

“…Hart and Acs (2011) found that immigrants have played an important role in founding some of the nation's most important businesses. Immigrant enterprises operate in the same industries as their native-founded counterparts, are about the same size, and have about the same level of technological performance.…”