Social and human capital in immigrant adaptation:: The case of Canadian business immigrants

Purpose: With the resurgence of immigration to North America in the past three decades, research on immigrant adaptation and the attendant issues of assimilation has burgeoned. A prevailing assumption of much of this research is that social capital is a vital resource enabling immigrants to find their economic and social niches in the host society. In a word, social capital is a key factor in the immigrant adaptation process. This assumption has been especially prominent in research focusing on one specific subset of immigrants: entrepreneurs. Social capital in the form of ethnic networks and family ties is assumed to function critically in the establishment and operation of immigrant-owned businesses. This paper argues that although the formation and expenditure of social capital may typify the experiences of many or even most immigrant entrepreneurs, some enter the host society with sufficient human and/or financial capital that enables them to forego the utilization of social capital in the adaptation process.Methods: To demonstrate, I draw upon in-depth interviews conducted with 70 immigrant entrepreneurs in the province of Ontario, Canada between 1993 and 1995. All interviewees entered Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Business Immigration Program, a federal program designed to attract immigrants with demonstrable business and managerial skills that presumably will lead to the establishment of a firm and thus to the subsequent creation of jobs and economic activity. A formal requirement of their entrance, then, is the possession of proven business skills, a critical form of human capital that facilitates successful economic adaptation in the host society.Forms of social capital are described and their applicability to the adaptation experiences of the interviewees is analyzed. What is found among these business immigrants is a minimal reliance on social capital in establishing and operating their firms. In securing investment capital, finding a work force, and acquiring information, ethnic and family ties, the most common forms of social capital for immigrants generally and for immigrant entrepreneurs in particular, do not play a major role. Solidarity with co-ethnics and the use of family labor, so common among conventional immigrant entrepreneurs, are not of significant import in the economic adaptation of these business immigrants. Moreover, ties to coethnics are only minimally significant in patterns of social adaptation as well.Results: It is concluded that immigrants entering the host society with pre-migration intentions of business ownership possess sufficient human capital that enables them to disregard the formation and utilization of social capital in their economic and social adaptation. In this they differ from immigrants who take a more conventional path to business ownership, that is, laboring in the mainstream work force following entrance into the host society and gradually accumulating resources that lead to entrepreneurship.For business immigrants with children, however, social capital does play a key role in the decision to immigrate. Business immigrants are prepared to abandon successful firms in the origin society in order to provide their children with a more promising socioeconomic environment, including above all what is viewed as superior opportunities for education. Hence, the social capital that inheres in close-knit family arrangements provides incentive for parents to accept losses in financial capital in order to increase their children’s human capital.Conclusion: The context of the receiving society may also be seen as a form of social capital for Canadian business immigrants. All declare that quality of life, rather than the lure of financial success, serves as their major incentive to immigrate to Canada. Moreover, the fact that they enter a society that officially proclaims its multicultural character offers them the opportunity to become Canadian but to retain their ethnicity. The source of social capital in this case, then, is not the ethnic community, but the broader society.     

Ethnicity,opportunity, and upward mobility: Korean entrepreneurship in the Argentine garment industry 1965–2015

ABSTRACT

Currently, among the approximately 20,000 ethnic Koreans living in Argentina, an estimated 80% are engaged in the garment industry. Within the theoretical frameworks of immigrant entrepreneurship, this research examines why and how Korean Argentines have been continuously concentrated in the clothing industry from the beginning of Korean immigration in the 1960s to the present. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Argentina and on archival and documentary research, this study illustrates how Korean immigrant community in Argentina has settled and achieved upward mobility in the face of complex and fluctuating social and economic circumstances, combining opportunities with strategies and resources to create comparative advantages and benefits. By combining historical contextualisation with theories on immigrant entrepreneurs that had previously only been tested on short-term study periods, findings further suggest that scholars should pay closer attention to historical shifts and accounts in analysing longer-term periods of ethnic business.     

Business and Social Profiles of Immigrant‐Owned Small Firms: The Case of Pakistani Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Greece

This study examines Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs in Greece in order to identify patterns of ethnic entrepreneurship and socio‐economic challenges faced by ethnic entrepreneurs. The research aims to enhance understanding of the characteristics and business profiles of Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs in Greece's capital, Athens, and make recommendations for the development of a follow‐up three‐year longitudinal study of Pakistani immigrant businesses in Athens. A survey administered to 13 Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs recorded a wide range of data from which frequency distributions were processed as well as cross‐tabulations and Chi‐square tests, to reveal strong associations. Findings of note reveal that Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs set up enterprises with their own capital rather than turning to the private financial sector, are mostly well‐educated despite earlier research noting the opposite, Greece is the terminal migration destination of choice for Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs, their market‐share of work permits is proportionately larger than their residence permit share, they differ from other ethnic groups by substantial preference for operation of call centers, and they are very much bound to their ethnic enclaves. This body of research offers a unique contribution to an area which has until now been largely ignored.     

What is ethnic in an ethnic economy?

This article examines critically the relationship between ethnicity and entrepreneurship in the sociology of immigrant economies. It argues that what is ethnic in an ethnic economy has often been confusingly conceptualised and that several factors now call for re-assessing the ethnic nature of immigrants' business activities. On the basis of a review of recent research, three such factors are outlined: the porosity of ethnic boundaries to cross-group business interactions; the diversity within immigrant economies in terms of status, gender, class and generation; and the political and institutional context in which immigrant economies take place. The conclusion stresses the need for multiple explanations of how and why immigrants become entrepreneurs, which take into account not only the meso-level constituted by ethnicity and social capital, but also micro-individual factors and macro-institutional settings.     

Immigrant socioeconomic mobility in the United States: Mechanisms of inequality and the role of ethnic capital

We review recent social science research on the socioeconomic mobility of immigrants to the United States by focusing on the educational, occupational, and income attainments among immigrant adults, the first‐generation, and the educational attainment of their children, the New Second‐Generation. Existing research has identified significant inequalities in educational attainment between second‐generation Asian and Latinx immigrant groups. Researchers have also highlighted the importance of ethnic capital for mobility, but we find that they have largely proceeded with the assumption that co‐ethnic ties are easily available as a benefit for immigrants upon resettlement. We propose that future research on immigrant socioeconomic mobility should incorporate conceptual insights from economic and cultural sociology as well as use comparative ethnographic research designs to directly observe how ethnic capital operates to challenge or reinforce patterns of socioeconomic inequality.     

Entrepreneurial gain,cultural similarity and transnational entrepreneurship

The aim of this article is to analyse the factors affecting the motivations of immigrant entrepreneurs to generate an entrepreneurial gain (positive impact on home and host countries). We consider that positive reasons for emigrating can increase transnational entrepreneurship and mutual benefits for both societies. To test this hypothesis we present a model using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). This model explains the relations between motivations, cultural similarities, institutions and transnational linkage potentials. We designed an ad hoc search of Argentinean entrepreneurs established in Spain, both as EU citizens and without legal EU status, using online social networks. We applied an online questionnaire to 214 such entrepreneurs. We conclude that institutional rules (formal and informal) greatly influence the location decisions of firms and immigrant entrepreneurs’ motivations for starting transnational business because they provide the frame for the development of profitable opportunities.     

STRATEGIC RITUALIZATION AND ETHNICITY: ATYPOLOGY AND ANALYSIS OF RITUAL ENACTMENTS IN AN ITALIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY

This investigation utilizes a theoretical framework that focuses on ritual enactments to examine the ways members of an Italian American community in southeastern Oklahoma use social rituals to achieve different outcomes. Several methodological strategies (especially interviews and historical analysis) are utilized to document how individuals within this ethnic community have, for over the last century, employed numerous rituals to, among other things, express their ethnicity, create community ties, enhance personal gain, and survive. Building upon the theory of structural ritualization, the concept of strategic ritualization is employed and expanded upon to examine this issue. A typology of three types of strategic ritualization is presented and defined: ritual legitimators, ritual entrepreneurs, and ritual sponsors. This conceptualization represents the first elaboration of structural ritualization theory addressing this topic. In focusing on this little studied ethnic community, the importance of ritualized practices and their strategicuse throughout society are emphasized. The relation of this research to broader concerns dealing with the social constructionist approach to ethnicity and the intersection of decision-making, culture, and structure are briefly highlighted and directions for future theory development and research are indicated.     

Stepping‐Stone to Intergenerational Mobility? The Springboard,Safety Net,or Mobility Trap Functions of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship for the Second Generation1

Much research has viewed immigrant entrepreneurship positively because of its reputed role in immigrant economic adaptation. With the growing professionalization of children of Korean immigrant proprietors, small business ownership is seen as a stepping‐stone to intergenerational mobility. To assess whether immigrant entrepreneurship serves as springboard to upward mobility for the second generation, this article compares the educational and occupational achievements between children of entrepreneurs and children of professionals. The comparisons reveal that a higher proportion of children of professionals attended selective colleges, obtained professional occupations, and earned competitive salaries. Results from multiple regression analyses also indicate that entrepreneurship was not a good predictor of college selectivity and earnings for the second generation. Nevertheless, children of entrepreneurs attained comparable educational and occupational achievements as those of children of professionals, suggesting that rapid financial security through entrepreneurship can replicate similar residential and educational opportunities for children of entrepreneurs. While the springboard and safety net functions of small business on intergenerational mobility are salient, in some circumstances, obligations to help out in a family business can lead to personal sacrifice on the part of children of entrepreneurs, constraining their educational and occupational choices and leading some toward downward mobility.     

Shifts in Intergenerational Mobility of Indian Immigrant Entrepreneurs

The objective of this article is to examine the shift in the intergenerational mobility of Indian immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia. Based on a qualitative methodology, this article reports on the differences in the entrepreneurial attitudes of push and pull and the aptitudes of social and human capital between pre 2000 and post 2000 immigrant entrepreneurs. The findings suggest that the post 2000 Indian migrant entrepreneurs in Australia are mostly pull motivated, have higher qualifications than the pre 2000 arrivals, speak better English, have professional educational qualifications relevant to their business, and operate predominantly in the service sector. They take fewer years to get into business and are less dependent on immigrant social capital resources than pre 2000 arrivals. The study proposes that, compared with social capital resources, human capital resource have a greater impact on entrepreneurial propensity in the case of second generation Indian migrant entrepreneurs in Australia.

Policy Implications

• This research has implication for Australian immigration policy, labour laws and settlement services of migrants. It recommends successful implementation of policies and durable solutions for Indian immigrants in the labour market in Australia.
• The Australian Government will be assisted in examining and identifying future options for the intake of temporary and permanent migrants that improve the income, wealth and living standards of Australian citizens, improve the budgets and balance sheets of Australian governments, minimize administration and compliance costs associated with immigration, and provide pathways both for Australian citizens to be altruistic towards foreigners, and for Australia's international responsibilities and obligations to foreign residents to be met. Improvements in the labour laws would promote the effective integration of Indian immigrants into society.
• Further, Indians in the USA have contributed immensely to the entrepreneurial spirit due to the government support for migrant SMEs and the small business venture funds. The Australian government can replicate this policy, reduce restriction on employment opportunities and enhance entrepreneurship for all migrants.

     

More or less guanxi: Trust is 60% network context, 10% individual difference

The strong ties known in China as guanxi can be distinguished by a high level of trust relatively independent of the surrounding social structure. Using network data from a stratified probability sample of 700 entrepreneurs citing 4664 contacts, we study guanxi relative to other relations to learn how much individual differences such as well-being, business differences, political participation and demographic factors matter for the guanxi distinction. Two findings stand out: First, the connection between trust and social network is robust to most differences between individuals, especially business and political differences. Trust variance is 60% network context, and 10% individual differences. Trust increases within a relationship as network closure increases around the relationship, but some relationships mature into guanxi ties within which trust is high and relatively independent of the surrounding social structure. Second, when individual differences matter, they concern social isolation. Guanxi ties are more distinct in the networks around entrepreneurs with small, marginal families, and around those with small, closed networks. Both categories of entrepreneurs are likely to experience difficulties with respect to resource access and doing business with people beyond their network, which may explain why longstanding guanxi ties linked to important events are particularly distinct for these entrepreneurs.     

‘In the name of the children’: mixed couples’ parenting analysed through their naming practices

This work draws on the life stories of 18 couples, of which the men, married to Italian women, come from majority-Muslim countries. These couples incorporate more layers of differences: religious, as the two partners are socialised into both Islam and Catholicism, and racial-ethnic, as a white Italian partner is married to a non-white immigrant partner. Partners’ narratives are analysed according to the naming practices they adopt. Although mixed marriages are interpreted as a gradual loosening of traditional ties, naming practices show how their choices are connected with couples’ racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds, the expectations of the family of origin and the social context. Three naming processes are identified: double names to signal a ‘pact of equity’ between parents’ cultural heritages, alternation of names to reflect the couple’s ‘mutual migration’ over time and names which transmit minority ethnic and religious identities. The conclusions note how naming choices highlight different parenting strategies in dealing with pluralism in everyday family life.     

Immigration,trade and ‘ethnic surplus value’: a critique of Indo–Canadian transnational networks

It is often argued that countries hosting large populations of skilled immigrants might benefit from their cultural and economic competencies in the development of international trade networks. Yet, in so doing, the state can be criticized for fetishizing the ethnic immigrant in market terms in order to extract ‘ethnic surplus value’. In this article, I examine these debates empirically in the case of India–Canada immigration and trade using interviews with traders, officials and immigrant entrepreneurs in British Columbia, Canada. Findings suggest that the supposedly positive relationship between trade and immigration is not obvious in the India–Canada case and there is no convincing evidence of the state managing successfully to extract ‘ethnic surplus value’. Rather, what appears most compelling is evidence of what can be termed a discourse of regional disadvantage circulated by immigrant and non‐immigrant business actors alike regarding the nature of India–Canada relations. Interview respondents link this discourse of disadvantage to the regional history of Indian immigration to Canada, which has traditionally comprised Sikhs from rural Punjab, and it functions to essentialize Indian immigrant ethnicity spatially within both the Indian and Canadian contexts. I focus on the theme of the extraction of ‘ethnic surplus value’ and regional disadvantage to reveal the limitations of both arguments about the economic nature of immigrant‐led network development. In both cases, I challenge these ideas with a critical emphasis on the role of immigrant agency and offer a more nuanced and complicated reading of the role of the state. As a result, I offer a detailed reading of how socio‐spatial immigrant networks are formed and operate at the regional scale, and how this complicates more abstract theoretical formulations regarding the trade and immigration nexus.     

Social Capital Investment and Immigrant Economic Trajectories: A Case Study of Punjabi American Taxi Drivers in New York City

Although the scholarship on social capital and immigrant economic incorporation has sufficiently documented how immigrants mobilize social capital in their search for employment which often leads to the formation of immigrant niches, how social capital is processed after immigrants acquire employment and its significance for the preservation of immigrant employment niches is less well explored. This paper addresses this gap in the literature with a case study of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers in the New York metropolitan area. In particular, this study shows how a group of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers mobilized social capital via embeddedness in co‐ethnic social networks and improved their working conditions – a process that must be considered in explanations of the Punjabi niche in the taxi industry for more than two decades. The study has implications for the relationship between social capital and the structure of the workplace or industry where immigrants are incorporated and its subsequent impact on immigrant economic trajectories. Further, this study contributes to the debate on the usefulness of ethnic communities for the adaptation of immigrant groups. Additionally, this research is relevant to the scholarship on the economic adaptation of South Asian (a subset of Asian Americans) immigrants, an understudied immigrant group in the United States.     

Strong Ties,Weak Ties,and Human Capital: Latino Immigrant Employment Outside the Enclave*

Abstract This study focuses on the role of social ties and human capital in the integration of Latino immigrants into the local economy. This analysis extends earlier research by focusing on more rural contexts with limited labor‐market opportunities and less access to social resources provided by coethnics. We reconsider conclusions of previous studies by focusing on areas with limited labor‐market opportunities and less access to resources provided by coethnics. Using data from in‐depth interviews, focus‐group discussions, and surveys of former farmworkers in five rural communities in New York, we consider how individuals move from agricultural to other types of employment. Multinomial logit and ordinary least squares regression analyses confirm indications from our qualitative data that strong social ties, weak ties, and human capital all play distinctive parts in the economic integration of immigrants outside the ethnic enclave. These resources have the most positive impact on incomes when they contribute to the immigrants' self‐reliance in finding employment. This finding is consistent with observations from the social‐network literature that those who are less reliant on strong social ties are better able to take advantage of a broader range of labor‐market opportunities.     

ETHNIC SHOPKEEPERS IN U.S. CITIES IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The literature on retail entrepreneurship makes an important distinction between shopkeeping and petty trading. Building on this literature, the present study addresses two questions about retail enterprise in U.S. cities in the late nineteenth century: To what extent were retail entrepreneurs from the Southern, Central, and Eastern (SCE) European groups shopkeepers rather than petty traders? And which region of the country offered the best opportunities for retail entrepreneurs from these groups to become shopkeepers? Census data from 1900 show that: (1) retail entrepreneurs from these immigrant groups were more likely to be petty traders than shopkeepers; and (2) the opportunities for these entrepreneurs to become shopkeepers were greatest in the South, an emerging peripheral region with relatively small immigrant communities. These findings cast doubt on the conventional view that conditions in major northern cities bolstered shopkeeping among entrepreneurial groups, such as Russian and Polish Jews, in the late nineteenth century.     

Zanzibari Social Entrepreneurs and Poverty Alleviation Strategies: Understanding Efforts to Build Local Community Sustainability

ABSTRACT

Poverty throughout Zanzibar, Tanzania encourages social entrepreneurs to think strategically about methods of human capital development, promoting economic sustainability and asset building. Local women social entrepreneurs are successfully active in (a) building the educational opportunities for girls and low income women, (b) evolving in business to meet change and economic growth, and (c) empowering vulnerable populations and people living with disabilities. This qualitative study interviews 15 women social entrepreneurs in the rural area of Jambiani and the urban area of Stone Town. Their ventures are alleviating poverty and social workers can support these local creative initiatives in diverse ways.     

Immigrant incorporation in the garment industry of Los Angeles

This study expands immigrant social network theory and examined employment patterns in the garment industry in Los Angeles, California, among Latino workers employed by Asian immigrant entrepreneurs. The study determined that a large percentage of immigrant employees found their jobs through the immigrant economy. Entrepreneurship increased the supply of local jobs and expanded the economy at destination at no expense to natives. Immigrant entrepreneurs bought firms from nonimmigrant owners or started new ones with an immigrant labor supply. Massey's index is flawed due to its exclusion of the role of entrepreneurs. Migration networks facilitate entrepreneurship, but some ethnic groups have fewer entrepreneurs, such as Mexicans and Central Americans. A 1993 Los Angeles survey identified 3642 garment factories in its county. Mean employment was 27.1 persons. The garment industry was the 4th largest industry in the area in 1996, with 98,700 employees. It represented 6% of all wage and salary employees in the City and 5.5% of the immigrant labor force in the County in 1990. 93% of garment workers in 1990 were immigrants. It is estimated that 51% of garment factory owners were Asians; most employees were Latinos. Census figures on sewing machine operators indicated 47.3% of owners were Whites and 42.45 were Asians. 53.3% of employees were other ethnic groups, 14.5% were Asians, and 32.2% were Whites. It is estimated that 47.2% of total employment was due to the immigration economy. 71.5% of the total employment in the garment industry was in the immigrant sector.     

A Preliminary Analysis of Associations Among Ethnic–Racial Socialization,Ethnic Discrimination,and Ethnic Identity Among Urban Sixth Graders

Drawing from cultural ecological models of adolescent development, the present research investigates how early adolescents received ethnic–racial socialization from parents as well as how experiences of ethnic and racial discrimination are associated with their ethnic identity (i.e., centrality, private regard, and public regard). Data for this study were drawn from a multimethod study of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse early adolescents in three mid‐ to high‐achieving schools in New York City. After accounting for the influences of race/ethnicity, social class, gender, immigrant status, and self‐esteem, parental ethnic–racial socialization was associated with higher levels of ethnic centrality (i.e., the extent to which youth identify themselves in terms of their group), more positive private regard (i.e., feelings about one's own ethnic group), and public regard (i.e., perceptions of other people's perceptions of their ethnic group). Ethnic discrimination from adults at school and from peers was associated with more negative perceptions of one's ethnic group (i.e., public regard). In addition, the association of ethnic–racial parent socialization and ethnic identity beliefs was stronger for those who reported higher levels of adult discrimination. Results highlight key ways in which ethnic identity may be shaped by the social ecologies in which adolescents are embedded.     

Family as a eudaimonic bubble: Women entrepreneurs mobilizing resources of care during persistent financial crisis and austerity

Drawing on the conceptualization of family as a eudaimonic bubble, the study explores how women entrepreneurs mobilize familial resources to navigate the gendered challenges faced during persistent financial crisis and austerity in Greece, a country affected by acute socioeconomic crisis. Through qualitative interviews with women who started their own business during the financial crisis, it investigates how the allocation of resources and opportunities built on care enabled women to start and sustain their own business and achieve a degree of normative conformity, creating social cohesion in the here and now. The analysis reveals the transformational potential of familial care by illustrating three modes of resources of care that contribute to business viability, and positions the family, an organizing principle, in the centre of research on gendered mobilizations in crisis economies. In that way, the study critically contributes to debates regarding gender, entrepreneurship and austerity.     

Ethnic Community and Ethnic Boundaries in a “Sauce‐Scented Neighborhood”1

This article investigates the problem of ethnic boundary making in a changing context. Our case is Boston’s North End, a historically Italian neighborhood undergoing changes to its social and physical environment, making the ethnic definition of neighborhood identity and belonging more difficult though not less salient. Consequently, participants in the workings of the neighborhood—residents, business owners, politicians—face challenges of both boundary placement (who is Italian and who is not?), as well as cultural content (what does it mean to be “Italian”?). Rather than viewing Italian ethnicity as simply weakening over time, we argue that the North End shows ethnicity is in a stage of category divergence, where the still‐dominant ethnic identity is juxtaposed not against another ethnic out‐group, but at various times against boundaries of class and race, commercial and community values, even city political boundaries. Drawing on ethnographic research and in‐depth interviews, we describe three group identity frames that illustrate these processes and reveal how Italian ethnicity continues to animate discourse and action in the neighborhood.