Comments on: Immigrant Entrepreneurship Puzzle

By: Vafa

Vafa — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:03:29 +0000

I think the reason goes back to the same reason made them to be an immigrant. why they moved? well, many of them left their home to achieve their goals in life, which they could not find in their born countries. They had ideas in head, while there has been millions of barriers to develop them. so they moved. and where the condition was good, they started development.

on the other hand, people born in the country, with all of the opportunities, they really never learned how to use it and value it. In America, if you are only born there, its enough to have minimums for your life, and if you are not motivated enough, then you just sit back and live your life as it is.

Look at the tables on page 30 of the report, and look at the names of the countries listed there, now think of the situation in those countries. I think by that time you will agree me.

I think if the results of the report showed anything else, then that could be a puzzle to solve.

By: DanGTD

DanGTD — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:02:26 +0000

Maybe it’s exactly because they don’t focus so much on employing other people, as the study shows.
You can’t really grow without this. And you can’t stand still either.

By: Arthur Bland

Arthur Bland — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:41:01 +0000

I must also agree with you Chaitanya. The act of leaving their home for a greener pasture must have been the reason why immigrants are of higher rate as presented in the data. Their acts of doing so — immigration, is a clear indication that they really are into taking risks but of course, we have to note taking risks is NOT enough! There must be a justifiable and concise risk management scheme in doing so.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:17:54 +0000

I’m impressed with the risk taking and work ethic of immigrants, and have no clue why the stats say they don’t stick with it. That’s puzzling to me.

Chaitanya makes a very good point, I think. You have to be a risk taker, period, to leave your home, family, friends, etc. to take off to new lands and try and make a go of it. Maybe the start and stop portion of it is due to the fact that they are making more attempts into entrepreneurial endeavours than native born do.

By: Scott Shane

Scott Shane — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:04:41 +0000

Chaitanya,

Thanks for your comments.

While the facts you brought out from the report are correct, I think you miss the puzzle here in your comments. You write, “That could be the reason why there are more entrepreneurs in immigrants.”

This is precisely the puzzle. Immigrants aren’t more likely than non-immigrants to be entrepreneurs at any point in time. They just get to the equal likelihood to being entrepreneurs as the native born by being more likely to start and stop being entrepreneurs.

By: Chaitanya Sagar

Chaitanya Sagar — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:57:23 +0000

Scott,

Immigrants are essentially risk takers. They risked their careers and may be their lives as well by leaving their home country and came to the US looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurship is a natural extension of that risk taking. That could be the reason why there are more entrepreneurs in immigrants.

Thanks for pointing out the report. I am amazed by these facts:

“Nearly 30 percent of all new business owners per month in New York, Florida, and Texas, are immigrants.”

“Immigrant business owners generate nearly $20 billion or one-quarter of all business income in California, and nearly one-fifth of all business income in New York, Florida, and New Jersey.”

“Engineers from China and India run roughly one quarter of all technology businesses started in Silicon Valley.”

Chaitanya
http://www.p2w2.com

By: Mike @ WannaDevelop.com

Mike @ WannaDevelop.com — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:58:05 +0000

Very interesting report… Good stuff

Thanks Scott as always

Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:56:12 +0000

One possibility is the nature of the immigrant experience. Immigrants often come to this country with limited job options and face more barriers to traditional employment than natives. This is often true for even educated immigrants. Because of this, initial jobs are often low level with limited advancement opportunities.

They see small business and self-employment as the only way to advance economically so they pursue it. And when they fail they try again and again, bouncing back and forth between self-employment/small business ownership and jobs until they create a business that works – or they gain enough experience and contacts to get a higher level job.

In our work on cross border social networking we saw many examples of this across multiple immigrant groups. We were amazed at the resilence and determination of immigrant entrepreneurs to keep trying until they made it.

A second possibility is the stock and flow data come from two different sources and time periods.

Combine this with a demographic group uncomfortable with surveys or revealing data to the government and inconsistent results could happen.

A boring explanation, but possible.

By: Martin Lindeskog

Martin Lindeskog — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:47:22 +0000

As an American in Spirit and a true believer in the idea of America as a melting pot, I am glad to see that the immigrants are important pieces of the entrepreneurship puzzle. You don’t have to go back many generations to find traces from other parts of the world and find that they were attracted to the land of opportunity.

By: Sohail

Sohail — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:08:12 +0000

As the child of an immigrant entrepreneur and attempting to be an entrepreneur myself, anecdotally, I would say that lack of an existing support base + a family in the foreign country is one reason. Any minor setback could have huge repercussions, especially for cultures where community support is highly valued and important to daily life.

Just my 2c.