JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 422We here review and critique prior research on minority entrepreneurship, paying particular attention to the contributions and limitations of deployed sampling techniques and research methodologies. As based on this review, we then introduce the 2003 and 2005 National Minority Business Owner Surveys-a comprehensive and primary data collection effort that used varied methodologies to secure in-depth information about random national samples of African American, Korean American, and Mexican American populations as well as a comparison sample of nonminority business owners. We present the initial business ownership profiles developed with these recent data, in part, as a benchmark of the U.S. entrepreneurial experience, and compare the profiles with those presented in prior research. These profiles document similarities and differences across the four groups and provide an empirical foundation for understanding the origin of those similarities and differences. No longer can we ignore the in-depth study of minority businesses and their owning families nor can we simply assume that all businesses are the same, regardless of minority status or ethnicity.

Education has been shown to have myriad effects on people, from increasing their incomes to changing their views of the world. In the area of entrepreneurship, education creates opportunities and increases the rate of entrepreneurial activity. This study explores educationʼs effects on the immigrant entrepreneurship development processes and outcomes in the context of Korean-Americans by comparing a national sample of Korean-Americans with differing amounts of education. The sample is part of the National Minority Business Owners Surveys (NMBOS) carried out by the Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College between 2003 and 2005. The authors hypothesize that high-education Korean-Americans will have larger and more successful businesses, have more varying types of businesses, and follow differing paths to business formation. In addition, the authors hypothesize that motivations, goals, and attitudes toward their businesses, families, and their lives generally will be different. Among other things, confidence and level of satisfaction with their business will be higher for the high-education group. The study finds that while the low- and high-education groups vary in their types of businesses, the paths followed into those businesses, and the size of their businesses, they are very similar as to their attitudes, motivations, and family interactions. Implications for future research are discussed.

This study explores the financial intermingling behavior of Mexican-American and Korean-American owned and operated small businesses. It posits that ethnically-owned and -operated small businesses with strong familial ties and more limited access to financial capital are more likely to intermingle financial resources than other small businesses. Mexican-American small business owners typically have very strong familial ties, while Korean-American small business owners typically have very strong community ties. Perhaps more importantly, Mexican-American small business owners have less access to pools of community capital than Korean-American small business owners. Therefore, it is expected that Mexican-American small business owners are more likely to intermingle financial resources than Korean-American small business owners. Even when controlling for the time in United States and English language spoken in the household, this study suggests Mexican-American small business owners are more likely to intermingle financial resources than Korean-American small business owners. Within these two ethnic groups, similar factors contribute to intermingling. Small business owners living in rural areas and borrowers are more likely to intermingle financial resources for both ethnic groups.

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