Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks

Diasporas large-scale ethnic migrations have been a source of growing concern as we try to understand the nature of community, identity and nationalism. Traditionally, diaspora communities have been understood to be pariah communities, and most work on diasporas has focused on specific groups such as the Jewish or African Diaspora. This book is unique in arguing against traditional interpretations and in taking a comparative look at a range of diasporas, including the Jewish, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Maltese, Greek and Armenian diasporas.Taking the past four centuries into consideration, the authors examine diaspora trading networks across the globe on both a regional and international level. They investigate the common patterns and practices in the enterprises of diaspora peoples and entrepreneurs. The regions covered include Western Europe, the Mediterranean, South West Asia and the Indian Ocean, and South East Asia. Global networks of diaspora trading groups were crucial to international trade well before the twentieth century, yet because they were not part of established institutions they have remained elusive to economists, sociologists and historians.Through an understanding of diaspora trading networks, we learn not only about diaspora communities but also about the roots of the modern global economy.

This contributed volume focuses on diasporans, their characteristics, networks, resources and activities in relation to international business and entrepreneurship. It presents an overview of diaspora concepts from an economic perspective, and analyzes the global-economic and societal effects and mechanisms, revealing both positive and negative aspects of diaspora activities. Providing insights into the socio-cultural influences, it discusses diaspora entrepreneurship and international business, the respective organisational models, investments and business types. Lastly it offers an assessment of managing diaspora resources and policymaking. This book was created by an interdisciplinary team of editors, co-authors and reviewers including historians, sociologists, psychologists, linguists and ethnologists, as well as experts in public policy, international business, marketing and entrepreneurship. This unique team (many of the authors are themselves diasporans with an extensive understanding of their topic) provides the first global academic platform on the subject, combining the latest empirical evidence from developing, emerging, transitional and developed countries with various combinations of diaspora flows that to date have received little attention.

Diaspora Business provides interdisciplinary views and empirical research on diaspora in the global business and economy. It presents developed, emerging and developing countries and aspects from investments to institutional support.

The advancement and progression of migrant businesses has increased significantly in the globalized modern society. As such, current research has emerged regarding the characteristics of transnational economic activities. Diasporas and Transnational Entrepreneurship in Global Contexts is an essential reference publication for the latest material on the nature, process, and outcome of migrant entrepreneurs’ economic activities expanding from their countries of origin to their countries of residence. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics, such as regional growth, industrial development, and employment generation, this book is ideally designed for researchers, advanced-level students, practitioners, managers, and policy-makers seeking current research on how economic development can be encouraged and nurtured among ethnic entrepreneurs and businesses.

Examining the experiences of Africans setting up businesses back home, the main focus of this book is to establish the economic, social and psychological reasons for such ‘home direct investment’. Despite the personal sacrifices that are often needed in order to set up new ventures, the diaspora invests relentless effort and motivations in the pursuit of home ventures. The authors explore critical areas such as the social and psychological pressures that African Diasporas experience when investing in their home countries, as well as the management of diaspora businesses and the impact of such investment to local economies.

Externally-promoted institutional reform, even when nominally accepted by developing country governments, often fails to deliver lasting change. Diasporans-immigrants who still feel a connection to their country of origin-may offer an In-Between Advantage for institutional reform, which links problem understanding with potential solutions, and encompasses vision, impact, operational, and psycho-social advantages. Individuals with entrepreneurial characteristics can catalyzing institutional reform. Diasporans may have particular advantages for entrepreneurship, as they live both psychologically and materially between the place of origin they left and the new destination they have embraced. Their entrepreneurial characteristics may be accidental, cultivated through the migration and diaspora experience, or innate to individuals' personalities. This book articulates the diaspora institutional entrepreneur In-Between Advantage, proposes a model for understanding the characteristics and motivational influences of entrepreneurs generally and how they apply to diaspora entrepreneurs in particular, and presents a staged model of institutional entrepreneur actions. I test these frameworks through case narratives of social institutional reform in Egypt, economic institutional reform in Ethiopia, and political institutional reform in Chad. In addition to identifying policy implications, this book makes important theoretical contributions in three areas. First, it builds on existing and emerging critiques of international development assistance that articulate prescriptions related to alternative theories of change. Second, it fills an important gap in the literature by focusing squarely on the role of agency in institutional reform processes while still accounting for organizational systems and socio-political contexts. In doing so, it integrates a more expansive view of entrepreneurism into extant understandings of institutional entrepreneurism, and it sheds light on what happens in the frequently-invoked black box of agency. Third, it demonstrates the fallacy of many theoretical frameworks that seek to order institutional change processes into neatly definable linear stages.

Globalization effects nearly everyone and everything; and so, it does for networks and its different dimensions. Anna-Lena Bunse explores the network structure of migrant entrepreneurs in Bremen-Gröpelingen, and asks how informal networks for migrant entrepreneurs are structured and how migrant entrepreneurs can benefit from informal networks. It is shown how diaspora entrepreneurs in Gröpelingen communicate with each other and how this effects their businesses. The results highlight, that there are benefits for all diaspora entrepreneurs and their network partners, yet it also shows that they could use their networks in a more efficient way to optimize their businesses.

This book focuses on the role of immigrants in building economic, social and political relationships between countries. In this era of growing global interconnectedness, international migration and immigrant issues have become a significant source of disunity between countries. In some receiving countries, immigrants are now workforce replacements for an ageing population, while in sending countries immigrants use the experience gained in their country of residence for investment and entrepreneurial activity in their country of origin. This has led to the suggestion that immigrant activities are no longer a process of bridging the economic imbalance between nations, but rather the bridging of economic, social and political relationships.Transnational diaspora entrepreneurial activity relies on the relationship between immigrants and their home country, their understanding of the economic, political, and social systems in both their home and host countries, and the demand for their home country's cultural goods. As the demand for home cultural goods grows, there is a need to establish businesses that can operate across multiple environments. This book posits that transnational diaspora entrepreneurship can be seen as the internationalization process of immigrant entrepreneurship. It explains the role of enclaves in supporting this activity and offers valuable insights into how immigrant enclave activity and informal networking influence transnational diaspora entrepreneurship.