Immigrant Entrepreneurship in World-Historical Perspective: A Transitional Phenomenon?

Much of the discourse on ethnic minority entrepreneurship in Europe to the early 2000s was captured by an implicit ‘ethnic resources’ approach, in which the ‘culture’ of ethnic groups loomed large. This chapter argues that for all the welcome insights of these approaches, they are to a considerable degree eclipsed by more recent models, such as mixed embeddedness and the notion of entrepreneurial transition. The first emphasises the external business environment shaped by the market and the state. The second approach argues that heavy dependence on self-employment by ethnic minorities is a transitional phenomenon which gradually fades away as the group’s members acquire the human capital to compete more effectively for desirable employment.