Sylvie Paré

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 Role of Public-Third Sector Relationships in Solving Social Issues : the Case of One-Stop-Shop Service for the Promotion of Female Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Montreal

Objective: The objective of this paper is to review the most relevant literature on the relationship between the State and the third sector in the development of responses to important social issues. This exploratory paper specifically examines a case of public third sector relationships, Montreal CEMFII, within the most consolidated relation types to highlight what characteristics match with it and what do not match. Research Design & Methods: An extensive review of the literature on the relationship between the State and the third sector was performed in order to develop a model of such relationships and stress their principal characteristics. A conceptual effort was made to situate the CEMFII within the more consolidated relation forms, in order to provide evidence of their pros and cons in such specific case. Findings: It is suggested that the development of a One-Stop-Shop service could remedy some of the difficulties female immigrants face when attempting to develop businesses. The paper also argues that the CEMFII, as a product of the State - third sector interactions, has been risky and complicated. However, while there is no evidence that its public funds dependency constitutes a threat to the mission and autonomy of the not-for-profit organisations involved, there exists a sustainability issue linked to political leadership changes. Implications & Recommendations: While the effectiveness of the CEMFII to solve female immigrant entrepreneurs difficulties, which should be furthermore ascertained with data in a future research, is generally acknowledged, it might be useful that the third sector organisations acquire a financial autonomy to diminish their dependency on the public funds, which is subject to political leadership changes, and to guarantee the sustainability of the project. Contribution & Value Added: The uniqueness of this work lies in applying general frameworks of public- third sector relations to a specific case within a specific urban socioeconomic context, where the effects of political leadership changes can be clearly viewed.

Les entrepreneures de la région métropolitaine de Montréal dans la nouvelle économie : impacts de l'immigration et du genre

La problématique relative à l‘entrepreneuriat immigrant et de l‘essor de nombre de femmes entrepreneures dans les pays développés a été bien documenté. Nous avons déjà démontré que, pendant la dernière décennie, les femmes entrepreneures à Montréal, et particulièrement celles en provenance des groupes minoritaires, ne présentent pas les mêmes caractéristiques que leurs vis-à-vis masculins. Des résultats semblables ont été obtenus lors d‘une étude portant sur cinq groupes ethniques à Toronto et à Vancouver. La recherche mentionnée comparait les groupes de Montréal, de Toronto et de Vancouver étant donné que les trois villes en question ont accueilli une importante population d‘immigrants. Cependant, étant donné qu‘il y a une grande quantité de nouvelles occasions d‘affaires dans une économie faisant l‘objet de transformations majeures comme c‘est le cas à Montréal, nous pensons qu‘il est intéressant d‘explorer la place des femmes d‘affaires immigrantes dans la nouvelle économie 1 .

Book Review: Knights and Castles Minorities and Urban Regeneration

This book is composed of a series of papers presented in 1999 at Cardiff University at the International Centre for Planning Research. The conference theme focused on the contribution of minority groups to urban renewal, certainly an important subject in a time when our largest cities are being transformed by the diversification of their populations as a result of continuing, large-scale immigration. In order to better understand the impact of minority groups in modern western cities, the book explores a variety of topics touching urban neighbourhoods in Rome, Marseille, Amsterdam, New Orleans, etc. In addition to an introduction and a conclusion, eight chapters examine urban renewal and regeneration in the light of immigrant entrepreneurship, urban public policy and the political organization and participation of minority groups. The intriguing title of the book, Knights and Castles, evokes the period of the Middle Ages in Great Britain, more particularly the strategies used by both dominant groups and dominated groups to promote their interests and protect and/or develop neighbourhoods, and how these interactions affect the programmes and processes of urban renewal. The metaphor of knights and castles, while relegated to the ancient past, is revived through new actors as our great cities are being transformed through the renewal of diverse urban neighbourhoods. The strategies adopted by minority groups as they interact with policy makers forms the common thread of the papers presented in this book. The book attempts to demonstrate the constructive role played by a variety of minorities in the process of urban renewal by presenting a series of case studies. It also seeks to build bridges between the understanding of ethnicity in the social sciences and that of the administrative sciences. In the first chapter, Huw Thomas lays the groundwork for a transdisciplinary approach by establishing two principles. The first is that the importance of institutional, systemic discrimination should never be omitted or minimized, a particularly important point in the discussion of urban renewal where a variety of actors from different social groups are involved, in particular those from minority groups. The second principle requires that the analyst use extreme caution when discussing the difficulties of minority groups in dealing with the majority group or its institutional representatives because such discussions may contribute to the reinforcement of existing stereotypes. Thomas also observes that because minorities are more often vulnerable to urban public policy initiatives, they are constantly required to adapt to their changing environment; in fact, they are required to be more creative than the majority in reacting to changes in the economy. Moreover, for Thomas, the ‘social constructionist’ approach to the definition of minority status, while theoretically interesting, tends to deny explicit differences in status, the frontiers that separate groups and associated markers of identity. He concludes by proposing that the process of the formation of minority groups is socio-spatial in nature, individual groups being specifically located in urban areas. Residential location is therefore associated with differential access to power and provides the International Small Business Journal 23(3)