Enabling Social Identity Interaction: Bulgarian Migrant Entrepreneurs Building Embeddedness into a Transnational Network

Abstract

Bulgarian migrant entrepreneurs (MEs) approaching diaspora networks (i.e. ethnic spaces in host countries) provides a unique context for exploring the processes by which peripheral actors achieve embeddedness. The study considers how in‐group social norms and expectations influence out‐group candidates’ network standing. The integration of the social identity perspective with embeddedness research allows the identification of the sequence of intergroup actions and the circulation of identity signals between groups. Traditionally, the social identity perspective focuses on the act of constructing identity through positively stereotyping in‐groups and negatively stereotyping out‐groups. Nevertheless, an empirical study of 12 cases of Bulgarian MEs indicates that the circulation of identity signals that facilitate inter‐group comparison can result in complementarity and brokerage. The study suggests the existence of a novel strategy (i.e. social circulation), to add to already known social identity strategies (i.e. social mobility, social creativity and social change). In contrast to previous constructs, the new one does not occur at the expense of either in‐groups’ or out‐groups’ identity. Thus, it adopts an integrative logic, currently missing from the social identity perspective.

The diaspora phenomenon: scholarly assessment and implications for countries and firms

“…Some research has focused on the role of the home country ethnic ties of migrants during the process of encouraging entrepreneurship activities in their country of residence via knowledge transfer from the diaspora. By contrast, Nanda and Khanna's study (2010) emphasizes the role of ties with the diaspora during the process of encouraging and supporting home entrepreneurship, which rely heavily on diasporic networks during expansion abroad, especially in the context of developing countries, and are to be embedded into socio-economic networks (Stoyanov, 2018). Diaspora' members provide companies with the knowledge and networks they need in order to compete in international markets (Ibeh et al, 2018;Ratten and Pellegrini, 2019), and this effect is stronger for companies from their country of origin rather than for other foreign firms (Hernandez, 2014).…”

Immigrant entrepreneurship: A review and research agenda

“…The mixed embeddedness approach allows us to explain entrepreneurship by situating entrepreneurial capabilities and opportunities within a socio-economic, spatial and regulatory context (Jones et al, 2014;Kloosterman, 2010;Ram et al, 2013;Stoyanov, 2018). Kloosterman (2010) has developed a framework for analyzing migrant entrepreneurship through a mixed embeddedness approach.…”

Does Creativity Influence the Perception of Creative Identities?

“…There are 'push' and 'pull' dynamics regulating the entrepreneurial activities which describe an entrepreneur's identity (Giacomin et al, 2007). Scholars deal with specific difficulties about the identity of an entrepreneur, e.g., trust and values (Phillips et al, 2013), corruption (Goel and Nelson, 2021), or deals with entrepreneurs in specific industries, e.g., students of arts (Bass, 2017), fresh graduates (Vivant, 2016), musicians (Albinsson, 2018;Schediwy et al, 2018), migrants (Stoyanov, 2017). The ethical side of an entrepreneur's identity was researched about honesty (Alrawadieh and Alrawadieh, 2018).…”