Minding the Gaps in British Ethnic Entrepreneurship and Commercial History: From the Genesis to the 21^st Century

Abstract

Tracing the origin and development of British ethnic entrepreneurship from the 1800s to the 21st century raises awareness of a salient research gap to make a contribution to entrepreneurship research. We draw on path dependency theory to understand the range of socio-cultural and economic factors that inform the dynamic behaviour and actions of visible minorities (Africans, Chinese, South Asians and people form the Caribbean) ethnic entrepreneurship. Archival and industry documentations are analysed to identify four distinctive epochal periods of origination of ethnic entrepreneurship that highlight the path dependency of activities. Furthermore, we found network alliances, business clusters and resilience factors, such as founder-owner social outlook, culture, faith, and social identity as critical success factors. We further outline the implications of the historical development for research, government policy, industry and entrepreneurial practice in the UK. 1 | INTRODUCTION In the first half of the 20 th century, business historians Joseph Schumpeter and Alfred Chandler pioneered the discipline of entrepreneurship. However, economists have been documenting the status of economies through the prism of capitalism and industrialisation since the mid-19 th century (Hodgson, 2003). In their treatise, 'Entrepreneurship and Historical Explanation' Casson and Godley (2005) described the entrepreneur as an influential figure in economic growth, companies, industries, trade associations, and the market economy as a collective. They opined that the definition of entrepreneurship meant different things to different people. In 'Measuring Historical Entrepreneurship', Foreman-Peck (2005) cited profits, innovation, productivity, industry entrants and other aspects of a firm's value chain process, as imperative towards evaluating the performance of successful entrepreneurs. According to Valdez (2003, p. 4), ethnic entrepreneurship refers to 'business-ownership by immigrant and ethnic-group members'. Admittedly, ethnic entrepreneurship is associated with socioeconomic mobility (Waldinger