Do immigrant-owned businesses grow financially? An empirical study of African immigrant-owned businesses in the South Africa

Robertson Tengeh, Hb Ballard and As Slabbert

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Given the fact that numerous challenges prohibit African immigrants from availing financial capital for the purpose of starting a business in South Africa, this paper sets out to investigate whether those that succeeded experienced a significant increment in their financial capital three or more years after start-up. This paper was designed within the quantitative and qualitative research paradigms. A triangulation of three methods was utilised to collect and analyze the data. From a quantitative perspective, the survey questionnaire was used. To complement the quantitative approach, personal interviews and focus groups were utilised as the methods within the qualitative approach paradigm. The primary data collection instrument used was the survey questionnaire which was complemented by personal interviews and focus group debates. The results revealed that the majority (71,1%) African immigrants had an estimated start-up financial in the range of R 1 000 and R 5 000, which tended to vary across the different ethnic groups studied. After three of more years, the estimated financial capital of the majority (39,3%) of the respondents moved to a new range of R 50 001 to R 100 000. Noting a disparity in capital growth exhibited by the different ethnic groups, it was found that all the Ethiopians who started with a capital within the range of R1 000-R5 000 moved into a new capital range (R50 001- R100 000) three or more years after business start-up. Although the absolute migration in terms of capital demonstrated by the Ethiopians is not into the highest capital range, they were nonetheless the only country that experienced this phenomenal growth. In terms of occupying the highest capital range (R250 001- R500 000), 11,1% of Cameroonians moved into that range followed by 7,4% of Somalians. Using an increase in financial capital (generated by ploughing back profits) as a proxy for growth, we were able to prove that these African immigrants owned business grow and the rate of growth varied across the different ethnic groups studied.

Keywords: Immigrant entrepreneurship; immigrant-owned businesses; financial capital; financial growth; African immigrants; business start-up resources and South Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A10 A19 J61 M1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-ent and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in African Journal of Business Management 19.6(2012): pp. 6070-6081

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:40610

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