Immigrant entrepreneurs in advanced economies: Mixed embeddedness further explored

TLDR

The special issue originates from an EC‑funded networking research programme titled “Working on the Fringes: Immigrant Businesses, Economic Integration and Informal Practices.” This paper introduces the JEMS special issue on immigrant entrepreneurship and mixed embeddedness, offers a contextual overview for subsequent case studies, and outlines future research directions. The authors emphasize the mixed‑embeddedness thesis, particularly the demand side of opportunity structures, and propose a three‑level analytical strategy—national, urban/regional, and neighbourhood—to examine its dynamics.

Abstract

This paper introduces the JEMS special issue on immigrant entrepreneurship and mixed embeddedness. The special issue has grown out of an EC-funded programme of networking research entitled 'Working on the Fringes: Immigrant Businesses, Economic Integration and Informal Practices'. Our opening paper provides a contextual overview for the case-study papers which follow. We pay particular attention to the mixed-embeddedness thesis and especially focus on the demand side of the opportunity structures framework which confronts potential immigrant entrepreneurs. We propose a three-level strategy for analysing the opportunity structure and its underlying dynamics, based on national, urban/regional and neighbourhood levels of comparison. In the nal part of the paper, we identify several possible future lines of research.