Jan Brzozowski

Determinants of self-employment among Polish and Romanian immigrants in Germany

AbstractThis empirical study investigates the determinants of self-employment propensity of Polish and Romanian immigrants in Germany. The German economy is an important object of analysis, as it is the most important destination for international migrants in the European Union. In the paper, we use the recently collected M sample of the German Socio-Economic Panel to examine which personal, country of birth-specific socio-economic and cultural factors influence the self-employment propensity of immigrants. The results of binominal logit regression show that the Central European migrants exhibit different self-employment propensity than migrants from former Yugoslavia, Russian and Kazakhstan, Turkey and Italy, with the self-employment aversion especially strong among Romanians. These differences remain substantial even after controlling for social and human capital endowment of the individuals. This study offers important policy recommendations, showing the potential obstacles in encouraging entrepreneuri...

Proactive and Reactive Attitude to Crisis: Evidence from European Firms

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the behaviour of European firms in the time of the economic crisis in 2008-2009. We analyse the determinants of proactive strategies in the context of innovation and the range of products offered by every firm on the market. Research Design & Methods: Based on a large and representative sample of 14 750 (EFIGE dataset) firms from Austria, Germany, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the UK, we estimate the logit model for two measures of proactive strategy: the investment behaviour and the introduction of new products on the market. Findings: We find evidence that the experience of the former crisis by the company is associated with the adoption of proactive behaviour in the case of investments in innovation, and reactive behaviour in the case of the product offer range. Implications & Recommendations: As the public support for innovative investments proved to be rather ineffective, the most promising direction for public policies in the times of crisis are those that facilitate the access to external financing. Contribution & Value Added: Our paper contributes to the development of knowledge on the dynamics of company behaviour in the wake of the economic crisis in 2008, and to the better understanding of the determinants of proactive behaviour of enterprises within the context of rising uncertainty.

Editorial: Immigrant and Ethnic Entrepreneurship

The importance of businesses started and developed by immigrants is host countries is substantial. Just in the US, 90 of the enterprises listed on Fortune 500 have been founded by immigrants, and additional 114 have been started by the second-generation immigrants, i.e. children of foreign-born persons (cf. Partnership for a New American Economy, 2011). As the contribution of immigrant entrepreneurship for the global economy is recognized by policy makers and experts, it is also reflected in the growing research on this topic. Research papers on immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship have increased in numbers in 2000s and in the second decade of 21st century, including articles in such respected journals as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (Drori, Honig, & Wright, 2009), Small Business Economics (Mueller, 2014) or Entrepreneurship and Regional Development (Aliaga-Isla&Rialp, 2013). Still, this emerging and rapidly growing field of study suffers from a number of limitations. The first one is the concentration of the bulk of the research on a small number of countries (mostly the US and Canada) and few, selected ethnic groups (Latino, Chinese, Korean). The second deficiency is the modest number of theoretical concepts developed for the analysis of the phenomenon, especially the development of immigrant enterprises. Another gap in the current research is the small number of quantitative approaches, as most of the studies remain qualitative. Then, there are several underserved topics, including less popular geographical locations, disadvantaged immigrant ethnic groups (especially refugees), immigrant entrepreneurs at the risk of marginalization on one hand, and the successful intentional immigrant entrepreneurs on the other, and the gender perspective just to mention the most obvious candidates. Finally, the most visible drawback in current research agenda is the limited interdisciplinary approach both to empirics and theory. Although immigrant entrepreneurship research is firmly established within the business/entrepreneurship studies, it needs a more comprehensive dialogue with the migration studies, including such disciplines as sociology and anthropology. Our thematic issue on immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship aims to address at least some of the aforementioned research gaps.

Migração internacional e desenvolvimento econômico

Brazil is a country of a long immigration history, however its emigration experience is a recent issue. The migration transition started in the 1980s, when the first wave of migration was initiated. This process is continued in the next decades: therefore, the traditional nation of immigration was transformed in the nation of emigration. Brazilian Diaspora is now estimated in ca. 3,7 million and constitutes an important area of interest for the scholars and policy-makers interested in development policy. This article focuses on the relationship between migration and development from the perspective of the sending country. The author argues that in the Brazilian case, the impact of migration on the national economy should be beneficial, especially when analyzing the effects of remittances on the mezzo (i.e. regional) level.

Exploring transnational entrepreneurship. Immigrant entrepreneurs and foreign-born returnees in the Italian ICT sector

This explorative paper contributes to the expanding literature on immigrant transnationalism by investigating the determinants of transnational entrepreneurial behavior among two groups of foreign-born entrepreneurs from emerging and developing countries who settled in Italy: foreign-born returnees (i.e., foreign-born individuals of Italian origin) and immigrants (i.e., persons without Italian ethnic origin). Using a large data-set on immigrant entrepreneurs in the Italian ICT sector, we have found foreign-born returnees to be less likely to engage in transnational entrepreneurship activity than immigrant entrepreneurs of non-Italian descent. Foreign-born returnees are mostly linked with economic activities focused on the domestic (Italian) market, while other immigrants much often turn their entrepreneurial activities back to home countries, but also their firms tend to be more internationalized. Therefore, we argue that the multicultural experience of foreign-born returnees constitutes an unexploited potential for the ICT sector in Italy, especially within the context of the internationalization prone ICT entrepreneurship.

Migration and development at home: Bitter or sweet return? Evidence from Poland

The existing economic literature focuses on the benefits that return migrants offer to their home country in terms of entrepreneurship and human and financial capital accumulation. However, return migration can have modest or even some detrimental effects if the migration experience was unsuccessful and/or if the migrant fails to re-integrate into the home country’s economy. In our paper, we empirically show which factors – both individual characteristics and features related to the migration experience – influence the likelihood of a sub-optimal employment of returnees’ human capital employing an original dataset on a representative sample of return migrants in Silesia (Poland).

Firms’ Proactiveness During the Crisis: Evidence from European Data

Abstract This paper contributes to the literature on the entrepreneurial behavior of firms during the economic crisis, by investigating the determinants of proactive behavior on a large sample of European companies during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We explore various dimensions of proactive behavior, including: investments in innovation, expanding product offer, undergoing quality certification, investing in tangible assets and avoiding layoff. Our findings show a surprising heterogeneity of determinants in the case of different proactivity measures, especially when considering the impact of public policies which support entrepreneurship. We also provide some evidence supporting the organizational learning hypothesis with regard to proactiveness, as we show that the previous crisis experience matters in the case of the adoption of proactive or reactive strategy by a firm.

Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Economic Adaptation: A Critical Analysis

Objective: The main goal of the article is to discuss the theoretical relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and immigrant’s economic adaptation. Research Design & Methods: The paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on immigrant entrepreneurship and economic adaptation of immigrants in a host country. Then the paper develops testable propositions and a theoretical model for future empirical research on this topic. Findings: The paper describes three main potential outcomes of immigrant economic adaptation through entrepreneurship: segmented assimilation, transnationalism and provisional business project strategy. Implications & Recommendations: Understanding the factors that contribute to adaptation of immigrant entrepreneurs is crucial from policy-making perspective, as immigrant entrepreneurship is increasingly promoted as a viable strategy for economic adaptation for new immigrant groups in major host countries. Contribution & Value Added: The theoretical relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and economic adaptation remains underaddressed in the literature. Thus, the paper contributes to the knowledge on economic adaptation of immigrants, by proposing a model of immigrant entrepreneurship evolution and development. The model stresses interrelations between immigrant entrepreneurship and economic adaptation.

Assessing Readiness to Family Firm Succession: Lessons from Insist Project

Poland, as other post-communist transforming economies from Central and Eastern Europe, has a relatively short experience with family firm’s development. The historical discontinuity in private sector is due to communist rule in 1945-1989: in that period most of the private (including family) businesses were closed and private entrepreneurial activity was banned. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the principles of a free-market economy were re-established in the region. Consequently, the expansion of the private sector in the early 1990s was the main driving force in the economic development of Poland and an entire CEE region. In the development of the private sector, one of the crucial players were and still are the family firms. Now, almost 30 years after the start of the economic system transition, many founders of such enterprise face the challenge of a first successful succession within the family business. One of the still under-explored areas in the studies on family firms and on the research on family business succession in particular, is the level of the preparedness and the readiness of the new generation to take the lead over the family business. In our explorative study, we investigate the willingness of the potential successors to take over the family firm in the population of students. We find a relative reluctance to family firm succession among female respondents, while the average size of the firm is associated with a greater attractiveness of the succession.

The Directions of the Development of the VET System in Poland

The aim of this paper is to describe and discuss the evolution, the current state and the perspectives of the vocational education and training (VET) system in Poland. In the period of the economic slowdown in Poland and the Financial and Sovereign Debt Crisis in several EU member states, the need for structural reforms, including the reform of the vocational education and training is becoming increasingly important. Therefore, in the paper the special attention has been paid to the links between the education and labor markets in view of the signaled difficulties in smoothing the transition of VET graduates from schooling to work. The paper identifies the needs of Polish employers in relation to vocational training and puts forward some propositions for policy makers in order to improve the employability of VET graduates.