Matching opportunities with resources: A framework for analysing (migrant) entrepreneurship from a mixed embeddedness perspective

Abstract

In this article, an innovative analytical framework for the analysis of (migrant) entrepreneurship is presented. The approach combines the micro-level of the individual entrepreneur (with his or her resources), with the meso-level of the local opportunity structure and links the latter, in more loose way, to the macro-institutional framework. This way, insights on the necessary resources of an (aspiring/nascent) entrepreneur with views on opportunity structures can be combined. A simple typology of the opportunity structure is presented which distinguishes between different kind of openings based, on the one hand, on differences in entry barriers (in terms of human capital), and, on the other, on their dynamics (growing or stagnating). This comprehensive analytical framework relates (shifts in) opportunities, resources and outcomes of immigrant entrepreneurship in a systematic way.

Keywords:

• immigrant entrepreneurship
• opportunity structure
• mixed embeddedness
• social capital
• varieties of capitalism

Notes

Notes

1. I would like to thank the Mixed Embeddedness team–Ewald Engelen, Maria Ilieş, Joanne van der Leun, Jan Rath and Katja Rusinovic–and Donald Light and Ivan Light for their insights and comments. Part of this article was written during my stay as a NIAS-Fellow 2008–2009 in Wassenaar.

2. Quite recently though, a new phenomenon has emerged as successful entrepreneurs from countries as Brazil, India and China are buying up large firms in the developed economies. The Indian entrepreneur Lakshmi Mittal who bought the steel firm Arcelor is a case in point.

3. Given the labour intensity of production in these markets, we should perhaps also refer to the physical capital needed to sustain long hours of hard work.

4. Post-industrial does not imply the end to all forms of manufacturing, but instead refers to the gradual demise of large-scale forms of manufacturing. We could also have labelled it Postfordism. This term, however, is (too) frequently couched in unilinear narratives and, hence, tends to ignore the possibility of different trajectories and also the possibility of co-existence of different modes of production. See also, section 4.

5. This section has benefited greatly from discussions with Joanne van der Leun and Katja Rusinovic.

6. An example of this are the musicians with a migrant background in Paris who want to make it in the music scene. Lack of heterogeneous social capital, which comprises employees of the music industry who serve as gatekeepers regarding record deals and performances might even block the very entry to markets (Brandellero and Kloosterman 2009).

7. This dichotomy strongly overlaps with Esping-Andersen's distinction between, on the one hand, Corporatist Welfare States and Social-Democratic Welfare States and Liberal Welfare States on the other. Hall and Soskice, however, use the embeddedness of the firm as their strategic window whereas Esping-Andersen primarily focusses on the embeddedness of the labour market.

8. Whitley (2000, 31) defines business systems as the ‘distinctive patterns of economic organisation that vary in their degree and mode of authoritative coordination of economic activities, and in the organisation of, and interconnections between owners, managers, experts, and other employees’.

9. Whitley (2000, 44): ‘Even where the norms and values are reproduced by families and ethnic communities which are sub-national and international as in the case of the overseas Chinese and many migrant communities, the significance of these informal social organizations for systems of economic organization remains dependent on the structures and policies of states and political economies more generally’.

10. This closing off of openings is, arguably, one of the reasons why in Italy, where small firms are very notable features of the economic landscape, immigrant entrepreneurship has remained relatively limited (Magatti and Quassoli 2003).

11. We (the author, Ewald Engelen, Maria Ilies, Joanne van der Leun, Jan Rath and Katja Rusinovic) are now working on the completion of the mixed embeddedness project which is based on more than 200 interviews with entrepreneurs in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. We expect to publish this monograph in 2009.