Transnational entrepreneurship in the Global South: evidence from Southern Africa

Abstract

Transnational entrepreneurship is an evolving field of research which occupies an interface between social and regional sciences. The phenomenon of transnational entrepreneurship is driven by entrepreneurs that migrate from one country to another whilst maintaining business-related linkages with their former country of origin and the adopted country. The most critical distinguishing feature of transnational entrepreneurs is bifocality or the ability to function across two different business environments. Most writings on transnational entrepreneurship concentrate on business individuals from the global South operating enterprises in the global North. Absent are empirical studies of the nature and behaviour of transnational migrant entrepreneurs who operate across or between emerging or developing economies. This South-South gap in international research concerning transnational entrepreneurship is addressed in the paper which provides an exploratory analysis of the nature of transnational entrepreneurship occurring in Southern Africa using evidence of Zimbabwean transnational entrepreneurs based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Fragmented networks and transnational entrepreneurship: Building strategies to prosper in challenging surroundings

“…Regarding geographical focus, extant studies are dominated by TEs from developing countries moving to developed ones (Rogerson and Mushawemhuka 2015). The main communities studied include Asian (Dimitratos et al 2016;Harima and Vemuri 2015;Lan and Zhu 2014;Lin and Tao 2012;Saxenian 2002a;Wong and Ng 2002;Wong 2004) and, to a lesser extent, Latino immigrant groups (Patel and Conklin 2009;Portes et al 2002;Urbano et al 2011), mainly those from Central America.…”

The Dynamics of Various Networks in Transnational Entrepreneurship and Study on Negative Factors to Enterprise among Immigrant Indian Entrepreneurs in UK - a Working Paper

“…Transnationalism enforces that a better understanding of culture, language and markets of the home country and the host country can be applied as a competitive advantage to advance transnational practices. The TEs stick out with their unique business idea, with them fully reliant on the dual institutional and cultural environment, to cater to the potential customers with their products and services (Rogerson and Mushawemhuka, 2015). These cultural and ethnic characteristics of the home country networks are major drivers which makes some immigrant groups more entrepreneurial than others.…”

“…TE must be considered as "a distinctive attribute of globalization" and indivisible from the changing character of international migration. (Rogerson and Mushawemhuka, 2015). Transnational entrepreneurs (TE) are able to identify and grab new business opportunities and act swiftly to shift the production across borders.…”

A Comparison Analysis Between Pre-departure and Transitioned Expat-Preneurs

“…The study by Moremong-Nganunu et al (2018) on the biggest migrant entrepreneurial ethnic groups, such as Arabian, African, Asian, and South Asian, noted that entrepreneurial capabilities vary among different ethnic groups. Corresponding to the embeddedness theory, Bloch and McKay (2015) ; Rogerson and Mushawemhuka (2015) , and Dannecker and Cakir (2016) found that good support in the host country and social-cultural capital are very important for entrepreneurial success. After literature analysis on migrant entrepreneurs, Agoh and Kumpikaite-Valiuniene (2018) highlighted the main conditions leading migrants to become entrepreneurs.…”