Creation of immigrant businesses. Chinese of Paris, Brussels and Montreal

Tags: research startup canada identity starting france entrepreneurship belgium chinese

Country: Belgium France Canada

In many countries, Chinese immigrants and their descendants are noted for their propensity towards entrepreneurship. Adopting an interactive and multi-factorial approach inspired by Waldinger’s model, based on sixty interviews with ethnic Chinese from Paris, Brussels and Montréal, we analyse the stage of creating a business. To do this, we base ourselves on our respondents’ personal characteristics, the motivations advanced by them and the means implemented in order to mobilize the financial resources necessary for opening a company. We then establish profiles of entrepreneurs based on three oppositions between observed characteristics, namely between the transplanted entrepreneur and the neo-entrepreneur, between the entrepreneur by default and by choice, between the community and the individualistic entrepreneur. The diversity of the profiles and the itineraries observed in the three cities, which last sometimes conform to one explanatory model and at other times to another, confirms the relevance of a multi-factorial theoretical perspective, which however deserves to be refined according to the case, as well as a constructivist approach to the phenomenon.

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