Migration and Migrant Entrepreneurship in a German-Polish border region

Abstract

Social sciences are interested in ethnic entrepreneurship as a chance for migrants to (better) integrate into the host labour market, and in consequence into a host society. Th e multidimensional models capture a wide range of factors at the bottom of the economic behaviour of migrant entrepreneurs, and they increasingly consider that migrants might profi t in business from sustaing their social ties with the country of their origin. Looking at Polish migrant entrepreneurs in eastern German regions bordering to Poland we plead for a relational perspective which considers migrants' business activities in relation to the patterns of trans-border residential mobility and complex social and economic transformations in Polish and German border regions.

Transnational Entrepreneurship: The Case of Poland

“…12 million migrants); top-ranking groups were the nationals of Poland, Turkey, the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan (UN, 2018). Data from micro-censuses show that Polish migrants are the largest group among migrant entrepreneurs in Germany, outnumbering even Turkish immigrants (Skraba and Nowicka, 2018). According to Census data from 2011, around 15% of all self-employed migrants in Berlin were of Polish origin -way above the German average (Skraba and Nowicka, 2018, p. 27).…”

“…According to Census data from 2011, around 15% of all self-employed migrants in Berlin were of Polish origin -way above the German average (Skraba and Nowicka, 2018, p. 27). For this reasons, Polish immigrants in Germany have been the subject of numerous studies, many of which focused on entrepreneurship and transnational entrepreneurship (Miera, 2008;Nawojczyk and Nowicka, 2018;Nawojczyk and Synowiec-Jaje, 2018;Skraba and Nowicka, 2018;Szarucki et al, 2016). Miera (2008) claims that the transnational perspective is essential for understanding strategies pursued by Polish immigrant entrepreneurs in Germany.…”

“…• making use of personal mobility, as well as differences in prices and purchasing power between Germany and Poland to develop cross-border trade, • recruiting transnational workers from Poland, • targeting the Polish community as customers, and • internationalizing business activities of companies established and based in Germany through the creation of branches in Poland. In a more recent project, the research team combined the perspectives of entrepreneurs and of experts in order to analyse entrepreneurial activities of Polish immigrants and transnational migrants (Nawojczyk and Synowiec-Jaje, 2018;Skraba and Nowicka, 2018). Anna Skraba and Magdalena Nowicka claim that migrants may contribute to revitalising neighbourhoods affected by economic stagnation and unemployment, infusing them with new energy, or reanimating selected sectors of the local economy.…”

The impact of the international crisis on the entrepreneurial intentions of refugees

“…However, evidence regarding the motivation to start businesses of refugees in a country versus host nation citizens is scant. Refugee entrepreneurship has not yet been fully conceptualised as a unique entity but rather treated as ethnic entrepreneurship activities distinct from migrant entrepreneurship, which is considered an important and evolving topic in the literature (Skraba and Nowicka, 2018). However, Dana (2009) developed a conceptual framework that includes four spheres of influence for self-employment in immigrant communities; and identified orthodox entrepreneurship and reactive self-employment as the two types of self-employment that emerges.…”