West Midlands

Exploring the growing link of ethnic entrepreneurship, markets, and Pentecostalism in London (UK)

“…Lack of sound mentoring arrangement, constraint of operating within very limited business scope, racial discrimination, and inadequate institutional support, are among the major problems highlighted in this study as constituting challenges to African-Caribbean entrepreneurs. This is an important finding not only because of the deep-rooted nature of these problems but also because it is strongly supported by previous studies (( Reeves and Ward, 1984;Ram et al, 2002). For example, Nwankwo et al (2010) emphasise the problem often confronted by Black Ethnic minority in obtaining support from the mainstream institutions established specifically for this purpose.…”

“…However, there are some noteworthy issues that typify businesses owned by the African-Caribbean (AC) entrepreneurs. There is a claim that the AC ethnic group in the UK has comparatively not been as successful in entrepreneurship as some other ethnic minority groups (Reeves and Ward, 1984;Ram et al, 2002). It has been stated that black-owned establishments are likely to be in "vulnerable sectors" hence may require special interventions to survive (Nwankwo, 2005: Nwankwo et al, 2010.…”

Microbusiness, Household and Class Dynamics: The Embedding of Minority Ethnic Petty Commerce

“…Importantly, the nature of the petty capital's transformation has implications for class analysis (Savage et al, 1992;Goldthorpe et al, 1980). The transformation of the 'entrepreneurial' middle-class must be regarded as integral to contemporary class dynamics, and the role of the household is significant in this process (Allen and Truman, 1993;Phizacklea, 1990;Ram, 1994a).…”

“…Moreover, when the cases reporting some form of unpaid contribution to the business by an owner's spouse were included, as many as threequarters of the businesses in which the respondent lived with a spouse could be described in some way as husband/wife businesses. Studies of minority ethnic enterprise frequently allude to the importance of other family members, as well as husband and wife, to the business household (Werbner, 1993;Ram, 1994a). The often vital contribution of children to business survival has also been recognised within such debates (Baxter, 1988;Peace and Hulme, 1994;Song, 1997).…”

Ethnic enclaves or middleman minority? Regional patterns of ethnic minority entrepreneurship in Britain

“…As in the Bangladeshi case, restaurants make up most of this figure. Given the size of the Chinese restaurant trade it is perhaps surprising that over 10% of self-employed Chinese are found in each of two other sectors, the distributive and motor trades, and real estate and associated activities. It may be observed that, despite well-known studies of ethnic minority involvement in clothing manufacture (Panayiotopoulos and Dreef, 2002;Ram et al, 2002a;Phizacklea, 1990), that none of the minorities we are looking at reach the national average for self-employment in manufacturing. Although we do not have space to reproduce them, we have tables equivalent to Table 4 for each of the regions in England and Wales, which also include the individual figures for the sectors aggregated in Table 4.…”