Integration of British Immigrants Into a Small Island: The Role of Entrepreneurship in the Food Industry

Abstract

This study aims to understand the role of entrepreneurship in helping British immigrant entrepreneurs to integrate into the socio-economic environment of a small island that suffers from political isolation and describe a relatively new idea on how entrepreneurship helps such immigrants from developed nations. Indeed, previous studies have discussed the role of entrepreneurship in helping immigrants from developing countries to integrate into the socio-economic fabric of developed countries. This research revealed the motivational factors of British immigrants to start their businesses in the food industry in North Cyprus, the role of experience in venturing, how they hire their staff, the role of entrepreneurship in forming social networks, developing their businesses, and more importantly, how it helped them integrate. The study is qualitative. The authors conducted twenty-three semi structured interviews with British Immigrants who invest in the food industry and live in the northern part of Cyprus. RQDA as one of the R Programming packages, was used to analyze the data. Results reveal that the motivational factors of British immigrant entrepreneurs cover the push and pull factors including experience, opportunity recognition and difficulty of finding a job. The findings also show that own savings and family capital were the main sources of initial capital. Results show that family members and personal knowledge are the two key sources of hiring employees. Neighbors and customers as friends were the top two social networks. Entrepreneurship helped British immigrant entrepreneurs to establish their social network and integrate into the socio-economic environment of North Cyprus. Discussions, implications and future studies are presented.