Abstract
This explorative study tries to shed some light on the linkage between diasporan self-employment, diaspora transnational activities (and diaspora entrepreneurship in particular) and diasporan economic integration. We take advantage of the unique pilot sample of 200 immigrants with permanent residence status who work or/and conduct business activities in Małopolska, an administrative region in southern Poland. Due to the different cultural background and migrant trajectories of the respondents (immigrants originating from Armenia, the Middle East and North Africa/MENA countries, Ukraine and Vietnam), a rich questionnaire which contains detailed information on economic integration and transnational activities and complementary information collected through in-depth interviews and focus interviews, we are able to test some initial propositions on the role that diaspora entrepreneurship plays in the economic integration of diasporans in a host country.
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Notes
- 1.
We are aware of potential terminological pitfalls while using the term self-employment. A more in-depth discussion is provided by Szarucki et al. (2016). In this paper, we treat self-employment and entrepreneurship as synonyms.
- 2.
This modification is due the fact that “emerging economy” category is very broad and includes not only high income countries as Poland, but also poorer economies of Armenia, Uzbekistan or Vietnam.
- 3.
The choice of these four ethnic groups was motivated by both their higher numbers among immigrants in Malopolska, but also their cultural heterogeneity. The individuals who have been selected to the survey were drawn from the category of legal and permanent residents.
- 4.
The Polish version of the questionnaire is available upon request.
- 5.
The experts were the representatives of each immigrant’s community, usually leaders of immigrants’s associations. In the case of Armenians and Vietnamese there were conducted two in-depth interviews with experts, while in the case of MENA migrants and Ukrainians there were three expert interviews for each. If cited, the interviews are marked as EXNo, where E stands for expert, X for migrant’s group (A—Armenian, M—MENA, U—Ukrainian, V—Vietnamese) and No for number of interview.
- 6.
For each migrant group there was one focus group interview conducted. If cited, the interviews are marked as FX, where F stands for focus group and X for migrant’s group (A—Armenian, M—MENA, U—Ukrainian, V—Vietnamese).
- 7.
Typical trading stands at fairs in 1990s were composed of a simple tent standing in a marketplace, thus traders suffered from cold temperatures during winter.
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Brzozowski, J. (2019). The Role of Diaspora Entrepreneurship in Economic Integration of Diasporans in the Polish Context. In: Elo, M., Minto-Coy, I. (eds) Diaspora Networks in International Business. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91095-6_17
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