A NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE OF IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURIAL IDENTITY: LITERATURE REVIEW AND IMPLICATIONS FOR STUDIES IN THE POST SOCIALIST SOCIETIES

Žilvinas Židonis ()
Additional contact information
Žilvinas Židonis: Institute of Public Administration, faculty of Public Policy and Management, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius

European Journal of Business and Economics, 2015, vol. 10, issue 1, 551 volume1: 10

Abstract: This article aims to contribute to better understanding of immigrant entrepreneurial identity formation from the perspective of autobiographical narrative analysis. Research on immigrant entrepreneurship identity has been dominated by works of scholars who basically fall into two main steams. The first one deals with such issues as ethnic, female entrepreneurship, and in many cases it reduces immigrant entrepreneurship identity to an ethno-cultural phenomenon, which exists outside or at least in the margins of official economy and mainstream society. The second research stream elaborates on rapidly emerging field of transnationalism studies. From the perspective of identity, transnational entrepreneurs are considered as new “nomads” who migrate from one country to another and maintain linkages with their former country of origin. The article argues that, in spite of extensive and numerous research studies, little has been said about how individuals identify themselves as immigrant entrepreneurs. The article delivers two main propositions. First, instead of “labelling” immigrant entrepreneurs, such as “ethnic”, “female”, or “transnational”, we should approach identity phenomena from the perspective of opportunity discovery and opportunity realisation. Proposition is based on the assumption that opportunity is the generic theme in entrepreneurial discourse. Second, the article proposes autobiographical approach to show how immigrants construct entrepreneurial identity by narrating opportunity, which lies in the centre of any entrepreneurship story.

Keywords: immigrant entrepreneurshipentrepreneurial identity; narrative analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://ojs.journals.cz/index.php/EJBE/article/view/551/520 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aad:ejbejj:v:10:y:2015:i:1:p:551

DOI: 10.12955/ejbe.v10i1.551

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Journal of Business and Economics from Central Bohemia University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Petr Hájek ().