Isolation as a Source of Entrepreneurial Opportunities: Overcoming the Limitations of Isolated Micro-States

Gambling Debt: Iceland's Rise and Fall in the Global Economy

“…As we have discussed before ( Jónsson and Saemundsson 2006), this development occurred over several periods of initiative and development with government participation.…”

Mixed embeddedness of immigrant entrepreneurs in microstates. The case of Andorra

“…Nevertheless, these informal resources are also employed by native entrepreneurial groups (Sassen, 1994) since receiving informal support from different contacts is crucial to start and maintain any business. Of course, entrepreneurs' social networks are not the only decisive aspect to run a business in a market; other factors include the legal conditions that usually constitute institutional barriers (Kloosterman, 2010) and the size of the country where the business is established (Jónsson and Saemundsson, 2006).…”

“…For example, many microstates exhibit a high rate of immigrant labour (Baldacchino, 1993), and this is probably one of the reasons for the creation of specific legislative frameworks that protect the small native communities in terms of identity, economy, social structure, etcetera. At the same time, this phenomenon entails the risk of falling into a technocratic system (Grydehøj, 2011;Jónsson and Saemundsson, 2006), since the voting community (those with politic rights) is a minority in the general population and laws are therefore likely to protect or benefit especially that particular group. Some of the most common features of microstates that may affect immigrant entrepreneurs are the following.…”