Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Italy and England

This chapter aims to perform a comparison between the history of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Bologna and London since they first moved to these two cities and to evaluate the economic and social similarities and differences between the two Chinese communities and enterprises. Business success has been a common characteristic of the Chinese overseas. Their entrepreneurial achievement, besides family and kin-group solidarity, is often based on their being hard working, thrifty, risk taking, frugal and high savers. Albeit many similarities can be found in Chinese entrepreneurs overseas, Battilani and Fauri also found striking differences in comparing the different communities which developed in Bologna and London. In particular, the authors investigate whether migrant communities coming from the same country share the same features everywhere or tend to be different according to the destination country. Do migrant entrepreneurs operate their business according to the mentality and culture prevailing in the country of origin or in the country of destination? As the two authors show, adaptability of the incoming community to the market features of the destination society was an important characteristic in the explanation of business success both in Bologna and London: Chinese immigrants in both cases have represented an economic resource for the country of destination.