New migrant businesses and their workers: developing, but not transforming, the ethnic economy

Leveraging symbolic capital: the use of blat networks across transnational spaces

“…Using data generated between 2012 and 2014 from a qualitative study of Eastern European migrants in the UK, we draw further attention to how migrants access, maintain and construct social networks in the host country (Ryan 2011), focusing on the flow of resources not only within social networks in the UK but also, crucially, across transnational spaces between the UK and Eastern Europe. Over the past decade, increasing numbers of 'new' migrants have arrived in the UK (Jones et al 2014) because of the rise in refugees and asylum seekers from war-torn countries (Edwards et al 2016), as well as migration from the new EU member states (Ciupijus 2011;Khattab and Fox 2016) and other European countries such as the former Soviet states of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova. Despite the growth of 'new' migrant communities in the UK, forming part of the 'age of super-diversity' (Meissner and Vertovec 2015;Vertovec 2007Vertovec , 2014, such groups have rarely figured in contemporary debates on self-employment and/or entrepreneurship, other than in a few notable studies (Barrett and Vershinina 2017;Edwards et al 2016;Ram et al 2008).…”

Challenges and issues facing ethnic minority small business owners

“…That is are ethnic entrepreneurs able and willing to reduce their reliance on the resources and social capital that are provided through relationships based on coethnicity and kinship (Patel, 1991;Kloosterman et al, 1999;Jones et al 2014), or will there be an ongoing reliance on the markets and production inputs that these provide? Studies of more recent migrants suggest that shared experiences rather than ethnicity are the key link providing access to economic resources, however, there is still limited evidence of breaking-out of traditional sectors, but where this occurs it is a strategic choice (Edwards et al, 2016).…”

“…Communication skills (language skills and shared cultural understanding) are a second challenge identified in studies (Sepulveda et al, 2008;Smallbone et al, 2005;Edwards et al, 2016). For newly arrived immigrant's communication issues can be one of the key reasons for entering entrepreneurship, allowing them to serve their own communities where no language or communication issues exist (Barrett et al, 1996;Virdee, 2006).…”

Evaluating the participation of an ethnic minority group in informal employment: a product of exit or exclusion?

“…Phillips (2011) argues that working within informal spaces can enable individuals to undertake their formal work as well as improving levels of work autonomy. Moreover, Edwards et al (2016) in a study of new migrant businesses in the West Midlands, UK, highlight how in addition to the monetary aspects, informal work practices act as important mechanisms in maintaining positive community and social relations in often ethnically mixed, low income urban areas. This paper contributes to this nascent literature by providing empirical insights from the experiences of the Pakistani community in Sheffield, UK.…”

“…Immigrant and migrant communities within the so-called 'ethnic economy' (Batnitzky and McDowell 2013), now contribute greatly to economy practices within urban centres in the UK (Edwards et al 2016). Migrants arriving in a new country are often characterised by having a strong sense of self-sufficiency, which often leads to such individuals moving into forms of self-employment in order to develop a means of 'getting by and getting on' in the new environment (Sepulveda et al 2006).…”