“As if it were home”: an exploratory study of the role of homesickness among migrant entrepreneurs

ABSTRACT

A common pattern observed in the psychological literature on migrants is homesickness, yet there is a lack of research examining if this phenomenon has any effect in the entrepreneurship sphere. This study begins to fill this gap with an inductive approach examining the Venezuelan migratory wave in Chile. Methodologically, we conduct an oral history analysis of 18 Venezuelan entrepreneurs’ narratives to explore the reasons they built their entrepreneurial ventures and the mechanisms underlying this process. Based on our findings, we show that homesickness can become an enabler that links entrepreneurs with a (latent unsatisfied) demand by facilitating the entrepreneurial ideation process. This phenomenon occurs because the engagement between individuals is heightened when they experience homesickness. On the one hand, we notice that homesick entrepreneurs enhance three resources that contribute to the entrepreneurial ideation process: (1) rhetorical skills, (2) affective empathy, and (3) adaptive attitude. On the other hand, two features also facilitate interaction from the demand side: (1) customer persona and (2) cohesive community identity. Thus, our results suggest that migrant entrepreneurs gain trusted partners based on shared homesickness. Consequently, a more efficient and effective entrepreneurial ideation process is generated.

Keywords:

• Migrant entrepreneurship
• homesickness
• ideation process
• entrepreneur

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Although we are aware of the need for consistency in definitions and coherence throughout the manuscript, we sometimes refer to opportunities instead of the entrepreneurial ideation process. We do so because we conceive that new venture ideas are a sub-construct in entrepreneurial opportunity conceptualization (Davidsson 2015). Therefore, we intentionally left these terms to highlight this feature.

2. As both Chile and Venezuela have the same official language, all information was also analysed in its original language, including the selection of quotes added to the text and tables. Although coding, themes and dimensions were in English from the start, we chose to retain selected quotes in their original language to ensure they truly captured the essence of what we were conveying. Upon completing the draft, we enlisted a native speaker of both Spanish and English to translate it.

3. A brief description of this information can be found in appendix 1.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.