Past, Present and Future Changes in Migrant Entrepreneurship Landscape

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Introduction

Migrant entrepreneurship refers to the process of venture creation by refugees, forced labor, immigrants, expats, and ethnic minority i.e., individuals, teams, groups, or families who were born abroad (1st generation), or were born in the host country, but at least one of their parents was born outside of the host country (2nd generation). Research on entrepreneurship by immigrants, refugees, ex-pats, and ethnic minorities has developed since the 1970s and gained both academic and practitioner attention in the last few decades. The landscape of migrant entrepreneurship has witnessed major changes in the nature and scope of the ventures and how migrant entrepreneurs establish and run businesses for the last few decades (e.g., Elo et al., 2022; Sinkovic and Reuben, 2021; Dabic et al., 2020; Ram et al., 2017).  Migrant, refugee, expat, and ethnic minority entrepreneurs their businesses have transformed the ecosystems and changed the relations in various business and social networks (Baron and Harima, 2019; Schafer and Henn, 2018). By doing so, they also influence the ways other companies are managed.
Migrant entrepreneurship has shifted from enclave ventures to break-in the country of residence’s ethnic market, for instance, ethnic restaurants or ethnic food stores, nail-shops which primarily served the need of the intra-ethnic communities (Bagwell, 2008; Dana, 2007; Kloosterman et al., 2001) to mainstream businesses to break-out and break-through creating new trends and setting new standards in serving the country of residence’s market, for instance, high-end restaurants which offer fusion food with high-quality interior design attracting inter-ethnic customers (Evansluong et al., 2019; Griffin-EL and Olabisi, 2018). 
The role of migrant ventures has moved from filling in the labour shortage and outsourcing services to developing the technologies for the local businesses in the country of residence’s market as well as for the global market (Machado and Freiling, 2023; Mosbah et al., 2018; Saxenia, 2000).  
How migrant entrepreneurs mobilize resources has also changed from the traditional way of from family and co-ethnic ties to the transnational network moving beyond the country of origin (Evansluong et al., 2023; Glinka et al., 2023). 
Migrant entrepreneurship plays an essential role in the migrant’ contributions to the country of residence and the country of origin’s social, environmental, and economic development.  The diverse impacts of migrant entrepreneurship are not only prominent in the country of residence by the migrant entrepreneurs (Jones et al., 2018) but also significant in the country of origin by the returnee entrepreneurs (Truong, 2020; Bai et al., 2018). 

List of Topic Areas

The Special Issue welcomes multidisciplinary research, including theoretically driven papers, (systematic) literature reviews, and empirical contributions. We propose (but do not limit) the following topic areas on migrant, ex-pat, refugee, diaspora, and ethnic minorities:

• Towards advantaged migrant entrepreneurs? Between disadvantaged and advantaged role of migrant entrepreneurs
• Changes in migrant entrepreneurship by individuals, teams, groups or families 
• Changes in transnational entrepreneurship by individuals, teams, groups or families 
• From traditional activities to diversified ventures: changing characters and forms of migrant businesses
• Returnees as entrepreneurs: changing roles in economy and society
• Family involvement in entrepreneurial activities – changing roles of family ties
• Evolving character of mixed embeddedness in entrepreneurial activities 
• First and second-generation migrant entrepreneurial activities: similarities and differences
• Gender and intersectionality influences as factors influencing change in migrant entrepreneurship 
• Entrepreneurship in emerging economies and developing countries: evolving roles, and redefined characters
• Opportunity development processes 
• Role of migrant entrepreneurs in receiving countries revisited
• Shifts in migrant entrepreneurship in (post-) pandemic times 
• The role of technological advancements in reshaping migrant entrepreneurship 
• Entrepreneurial finance in migrant owned ventures
• Changing landscape of entrepreneurship: displaced entrepreneurship, lifestyle migrant entrepreneurship, and expat-preneurship 
• Migrant and ethnic minority entrepreneur’s mental health and well-being (MWB) 
• The bright, the dark and the in between of migrant and ethnic minority entrepreneurship 
• Social, environmental and economic sustainability of migrant entrepreneurship
• Migrant entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems
• Incubators and accelerators for migrant entrepreneurship support
• Migrant entrepreneurship between assets and liabilities of foreignness 
• The role of entrepreneurship in political, cultural, environmental and economic changes in home and host countries 
• Domestic migrant entrepreneurship
• New challenges in migrant entrepreneurship research

Submissions Information

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Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Submissions Open: April 30th 2024

Submissions Close: October 30th 2024