Gabrielle A. Brenner

Transnational networking and business performance: Ethnic entrepreneurs in Canada

It is generally acknowledged that transnational networking plays an important role in promoting the performance of ethnic entrepreneurial firms. Yet distinctions between the different types of transnational networking and their effects on business performance have received scant attention in the literature, probably because ethnicity has been considered to be the main actor in the networking–performance relationship. This paper argues that one of the reasons why business performance differs across ethnic entrepreneurial firms is that ethnic entrepreneurs engage in dissimilar types of transnational networking. Analyses of the data generated by 720 ethnic entrepreneurs in Canada revealed that ethnicity, along with human capital and push/pull factors, both of which are part of our conceptual framework, plays a central role in the engagement of different types of transnational networking and that the different types of transnational networking affect business turnover (sales) and business survival (age). Push/pull factors were found to play a marginal role in business performance. These results highlight the competitive market that immigrants and members of ethnic minority groups encounter in the hosting economy and stress the value of transnational networking.

Measuring Ethnic Community Involvement: Development and Initial Testing of an Index

This paper builds on the work of Chaganti and Greene, who distinguish between ethnic minority entrepreneurs/small business owners who are very involved with their ethnic community and those who are not. We extend their work by developing an Index of Ethnic Community Involvement based not only on personal but also business characteristics. We utilize a large sample size (698 interviews with entrepreneurs), drawn from five ethnic groups, and develop a valid and reliable (0.69) Index of Ethnic Involvement (IEI) with a strong emphasis on social capital theory. Our initial analysis shows the IEI predicts some personal and business characteristics. Future development will include building regression models to predict business outcomes. The IEI, when fully developed, promises to be useful for targeting assistance, education and training programs, and policy initiatives for entrepreneurs and small business owners according to the level of ethnic community involvement.

Social Capital, Networks and Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurs: Transnational Entrepreneurship and Bootstrap Capitalism

The contributors to this collection provide a wealth of new analyses of both traditional and emerging aspects of entrepreneurship, from a variety of national perspectives and from a variety of disciplines. Globalization has begun to dismantle the barriers that traditionally segregated local business opportunities and local firms from their international counterparts. Local markets are becoming integral parts of broader, global markets. As globalization proceeds apace, entrepreneurs and small businesses will play a more prominent role on the global business arena. The volume is divided into three sections. The first looks at the internationalization process itself while the second focuses on factors facilitating this process in small and medium-sized firms. The last section examines emerging dimensions in management policy.

BUSINESS CREATION AMONG THE CHINESE IMMIGRANTS IN MONTREAL

ABSTRACT With the general aging of the population in North America and the fears of the increasing burden of a retired population on the taxpayers, governments have looked favourably on immigration as a possible way of solving this problem. With immigrants being cast in this role, questions of public policy have been raised on the additional effects of immigration on the host society. The public debate has focused on the economic contributions of immigrants versus their costs to their host economy. Thus the Quebec department of cultural communities has undertaken in the 1980s such a study designed to measure the value of the economic contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs and the federal government has undertaken two studies designed to do the same thing (1) (2). All these studies focused only on “immigrants-entrepreneurs”, (i.e. immigrants who had taken advantage of the categories of visas reserved for people who have promised to create a business in Canada).

Social capital and co‐leadership in ethnic enterprises in Canada

Purpose – To identify the influence of ethnicity and ethnic social capital on entrepreneurial practices such as the co‐direction of a firm, and more particularly on aspects of venture creation, management, and business development.Design/methodology/approach – The research was based on a field survey carried out in the cities of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. The authors study the entrepreneurs who had partners in their firms. The sampling technique, known as “snowball sampling,” did not concentrate specifically on firms with co‐leadership structures, but targeted all entrepreneurs in the ethnic groups concerned; the interviewers asked respondents to identify other potential candidates in the same ethnic group. The participation rate was not measured systematically.Findings – Co‐leadership, while fairly common and having a clear impact among Italian entrepreneurs, is not necessarily as popular in the other groups. Cultural features may have an influence here, and the structuring effects of the entrepre...

The lottery player in Cameroon: An exploratory study

We report on an ongoing survey of attitudes toward gambling in the two main cities of Cameroon, Douala and Yaounde. From the data it appears that lottery playing in Cameroon is an answer to the economic crisis that has plagued the country for some years. The results are similar to the ones obtained in previous Canadian, American and other studies in various countries.

Why do people gamble? Further Canadian evidence

In previous studies attempts have been made to examine predictions derived from Brenner (1983) on the characteristics of lottery tickets buyers. The present study complements the previous ones: additional, more detailed data were found both on 93 winners of big lottery prizes and on various groups of buyers of lottery tickets. The image of the lottery ticket buyer that emerges from them is of a person who finding all other avenues of success closed because of one form or other of sudden adversity turns to lotteries as a recourse.

Social capital and business performance: ethnic enterprises in Canada

The objective of this research was to identify links between social capital and the performance of ethnic businesses. Descriptive analyses, correlation tests and discriminant analyses were conducted on social capital variables compared to an ethnic business performance index, using a sample of 573 entrepreneurs from Chinese, Italian, Indian and Jewish backgrounds. The results point to the existence of a link between business performance and social capital. Analysis was able to predict membership of higher and lower performing businesses from a selection of social capital variables. As an exploratory study, this brings unique results to the ethnic entrepreneurship literature.

Problems Encountered by Ethnic Entrepreneurs: A Comparative Analysis Across Five Ethnic Groups

Despite growing interest in the difficulties encountered by ethnic entrepreneurs, very little research has yet been done on the subject. This article attempts to fill the gap. A total of 715 Chinese, Italian, Indian/Sikh, Jewish, and Vietnamese entrepreneurs from Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver were surveyed for the research. The results show that ethnic businesses tend to face the same problems as other businesses, which consequently does not appear to justify the development of support programs specifically for ethnic entrepreneurs. However, this study of established businesses does not consider failed or nascent businesses, which may have experienced additional problems. Further research is required to examine these issues. Also, given the unique social and business dynamics that exist within the ethnic communities studied, support programs should be directed through the networks of these communities.

Démarrage d’entreprises par les chinois, italiens et sikhs au Canada: quelques résultats empiriques

Sommaire Une faible proportion des entrepreneurs de notre échantillon a immigré au Canada pour des raisons entrepreneuriales. Ils se sont par la suite lancés en affaires tout d’abord pour des raisons d’indépendance et d’économie. Plusieurs ont découvert leur occasion d’affaires grâce à leurs expériences et à leurs contacts, mais aussi par hasard et à la suite d’observations qu’ils ont faites. Souvent localisées là où le groupe ethnique est dominant, ces entreprises opèrent principalement dans les secteurs du service, du commerce de détail et de gros. Ces entrepreneurs ont mis environ deux ans à démarrer leur projet. Confrontés, dans une proportion importante, à des problèmes de financement, ils ont investi personnellement l’essentiel du capital de départ et recouru au support de leur famille et des institutions bancaires pour le reste. Les principaux problèmes auxquels ils ont été confrontés portent sur la finance, le marketing, les ressources humaines, l’environnement institutionnel et la production. Nous avons relevé plusieurs différences entre groupes ethniques quant au démarrage des entreprises.