The Agency of Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Biographies of the Self-Employed in Ethnic and Occupational Niches of the Urban Labor Market

Abstract

Through an analysis of interview data and biographies of entrepreneurship, .we demonstrate in this article the diverse paths to immigrant self-employment across a range of immigrant populations. We address the utilization of ethnic and occupational niches for establishing businesses and the resources that immigrant entrepreneurs draw upon as they move into seEfemployment. By drawing on the concept ofbiographical emheddedness and by emphasizing the agency of individual actors andtheir motivational andexperiential resources, this article moves the analysis of immigrant entrepreneurs beyond the "disadvantage hypothesis" that has characterized much of the previous work on this subject. RESEARCH ON IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURS IN THE UNITED STATES dates back to the 1970s with the publication of Ivan Light's Ethnic Enterprise in America (1972) and Edna Bonacich's (1973) formulation of "middleman minorities." However, twenty years stlbsequent to these publications Light and Bhachu were still claiming that entrepreneurship was a "neglected but potent influence upon the economic and social integration of immigrants" (1993: 13). They argued, in particular, that the role of immigrant networks in building business had been overlooked, as had the impact of entrepreneurship on the volume of immigration. Several essays assembled in their book advanced the discussion of immigrant entrepreneurship, as have numerous articles published in the ensuing decade (for example,

Immigrant entrepreneurship contextualised

“…The literature points out that many immigrants are pushed into entrepreneurship because of discrimination that blocks other options, or as an outcome of limited language skills that makes it more difficult to enter the local labour market (Brettell and Alstatt, 2007;Collins and Low, 2010). This phenomenon is often called the disadvantage hypothesis (Min, 1984).…”

“…Although mixed embeddness has advanced the theorising of immigrant entrepreneurship in important ways, it has not sufficiently grasped agency in terms of individual interests and aspirations, as argued by Brettell and Alstatt, 2007;Essers et al, 2010;Khosravi, 1999). Moreover, it has not developed a sufficiently adequate understanding of gendered-and family-related aspects of entrepreneurial processes and activities (Collins and Low 2010).…”

“…Entrepreneurship as a means to obtain flexibility or independence, on the other hand, has been more widely discussed, e.g. in the interesting monography about the rising entrepreneurial class in Barbados (Freeman, 2014; see also McGowan et al, 2012;Smith, 2000;Phizacklea and Ram, 1996;Baycan-Levent et al, 2003;Brettell and Alstatt, 2007). Viewed together, the negotiations among the participants to pursue economic independence and new modes of self-making in a (for some of them) particularly attractive rural space may indicate the making of a new immigrant middle class in rural parts of northernmost Norway.…”

“…On the other hand, it suggests that immigrants are pulled into entrepreneurship because of the structure of the host economy using explanatory terms such as "enclave economy", "ethnic niches" and "occupational niches". For an elaboration of these perspectives, see Vinogradov (2008), Brettell and Alstatt (2007) and Volery (2007). Another way to categorise the theorising of immigrant business start-ups, is to distinguish between models focusing on the self (perceiving immigrant entrepreneurship as personally determined behaviour); models focusing on the ethnocultural milieu (culturally influenced behaviour); models focusing on the host society (compensatory response behaviour); and interactive models (Dana, 1997).…”

“…1.5 Independence. In the literature, the idea of being one's own boss to obtain independence is often cited as an important motivation to become self-employed (Zarrugh, 2007;Brettell and Alstatt, 2007;Baycan-Levent et al, 2003;Ramadani, 2015). In the study of Hilbrecht and Lero (2014), for instance, most participants reported of independence as a significant motivational factor for business start-up, and several of the self-employed participants talked about experiencing a "temporal flexibility", allowing them to organise their days in a way that permitted them to meet different needs (for further elaboration of this theme, see Hilbrecht and Lero, 2014, p. 31).…”