Migrant Entrepreneurs as Urban ‘Health Angels’ — Contrasts in Growth Strategies

Abstract

This paper highlights the importance of migrant entrepreneurs as change agents for economic vitality (‘health angels’) in cities in the developed world. The focus will in particular be on transition strategies of second-generation migrant entrepreneurs, as their ‘break-out’ growth and risk strategies may lead to a convergence of migrant entrepreneurship with mainstream entrepreneurship. The present study will address both the driving forces of this ‘new entrepreneurship’ and the socio-economic implications for modern cities. To test the above proposition, a unique extensive micro-database is used for a diversified set of migrant entrepreneurs in the four largest cities in the Netherlands. Detailed information on their risk and growth strategies was obtained from personal interviews with these entrepreneurs. The research first offers statistical findings from this data-set, and subsequently it uses a multidimensional classification tool from artificial intelligence, namely self-organizing maps, to identify and present patterns of manifest differences and similarities in the migrant entrepreneurs’ behaviour and attitudes. Finally, a causal econometric model is designed and estimated to assess the importance of various behavioural variables and control factors for the business performance of the entrepreneurs concerned.

Funding

Financial support from the NORFACE research programme on ‘Migration in Europe — Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics’ is acknowledged.

Notes

1. Sometimes related terms such as ‘ethnic entrepreneurship’ or ‘minority entrepreneurship’ are also used, but we prefer to use the more neutral term ‘migrant entrepreneurship’.

2. The authors wish to thank Mediha Sahin for making this database available.

3. We estimated the models with the other measures as well, but the results did not change dramatically. The results are available from the authors on request.