The impact of ethnic communities on immigrant entrepreneurship: evidence from Sweden

Author(s)
S. Tavassoli, Michaela Trippl
Abstract

This paper seeks to provide novel insights into the effects of ethnic communities on immigrants’ entrepreneurial activities. We investigate to what extent the decision of an employed immigrant to become an entrepreneur is associated with his or her embeddedness in ethnic networks in the host region. We capture such embeddedness through various mechanisms. Using longitudinal-registered data from Sweden and employing a logit model, we find that merely being located in an ethnic community does not have an influence on immigrant entrepreneurship; rather, what matters is being located in ethnic communities that have a high share of entrepreneurs themselves.

Organisation(s)
Department of Geography and Regional Research
External organisation(s)
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Lund University
Journal
Regional Studies
Volume
53
Pages
67-79
No. of pages
13
ISSN
0034-3404
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2017.1395007
Publication date
2019
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
507026 Economic geography
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General Environmental Science, General Social Sciences
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/e9e839d0-d05e-45b7-bc67-133d8c729aba