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BACKGROUND
Immigrants are widely perceived as being entrepreneurial and important to economic growth and innovation (Fairly & Lofstrom, 2013:1). Accordingly, many countries have established special visas and entry requirements to attract immigrant entrepreneurs (Borjas 1986:16, Schuetze & Antecol 2007:107, Mahuteau, Piracha, Tani & Vaira Lucero, 2013:53, Lofstrom, 2014:1). The special visa entry requirements have aided them to attract the type of immigrants that are needed to sustain their economic growth and to harness the other benefits that come from robust policies aimed at attracting the best immigrants into their economies Some countries strive to attract the right immigrants into their country as immigrants increase economic efficiency by reducing labour shortages in low and high-skilled markets this position is informed by the view of Furchtgott-Roth, (2013:1) who argues that the immigrants educational backgrounds help to fill employment gaps in the local labour market.
Immigrants also have a comparative, if not absolute, advantage in gathering and conveying reliable information about foreign markets in which institutional systems (formal and informal), language and culture differ significantly from the host country. Such markets can be the migrant‘s home country but can also in reality include countries that are culturally very similar to the migrant‘s home country (Genc, Gheasi, Nijkamp & Poot, 2012:3). In the United States, immigrant entrepreneurs are playing a major role in developing the economy and creating jobs for the locals (Jennings, 2013:2), Special preferences for admission are given to immigrants who invest US$1m in business and create or preserve at least 10 full-time jobs for US workers. This led to a proposal in the start-up act 2.0 of 2012 to expand opportunities for immigrants that are interested in starting businesses in the United States (US department of homeland security 2012, Farlie & Lofstrom 2013:1). However, the US$1m investment provision has allowed only big investors to gain access to the visa and as such, the United States of America is missing the job creation ability of small businesses that includes the immigrant businesses due to the initial high capital requirements (Anderson, 2010:7).
Perhaps in realisation of this loss, the national foundation of American policy then proposed a new visa requirement to accommodate the immigrants who can invest between US$31000 and US$175000 towards start-ups. The new financial outlay is an average capital required to open up new businesses within the retail, manufacturing and construction businesses (Anderson, 2010:9). This underlines the importance the United States government attaches to immigrant-businesses.
The Australian immigration policy is one of the main contributors to the job- creating activities in the country (Mahuteau et al, 2013:62). The immigrant entrepreneurs operate in diverse areas of business including retail, real estate, finance, media, manufacturing and some sell ethnic products such as food, coffee and many others (Collins, 2008:51). Evidence has shown that 90% of all immigrant entrepreneurs are small scale businesses (Azmat & Zutshi 2012:66) and they play a major role in job creation since about half of the work force in Australia are employed by small businesses (Collins & Shin 2012:19).
TABLE OF CONTENT
- Cover page, Proposed Research Title(s) and Key Words
- Declaration of Original Work
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Abstract
- Table of Content
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Chapter One: Introduction
- 1.1 Background
- 1.2 Problem statement
- 1.3 Research questions
- 1.4 Research objectives
- 1.5 Research hypotheses
- 1.6 Significance of study
- 1.7 Limitations of study
- 1.8 Definition of terms
- 1.8.1 Coping mechanism
- 1.8.2 Growth
- 1.8.3 Performance
- 1.8.4 Immigration and the immigrant
- 1.8.5 Entrepreneurship
- 1.8.6 Immigration entrepreneur
- 1.9 Outline of Study
- 1.10 Chapter Summary
- Chapter Two: Entrepreneurship and Small Business
- 2.1 Introduction
- 2.2 Entrepreneurship
- 2.2.1 Historical development of entrepreneurship theories
- 2.2.1.1 Cantillon
- 2.2.1.2 Say
- 2.2.1.3 Schumpeter
- 2.2.1.4 Kirzner
- 2.2.1.5 McClleland
- 2.2.1.6 Knight
- 2.2.1.7 Casson
- 2.2.2 Approaches to entrepreneurship
- 2.2.2.1 Entrepreneurship as a mental act
- 2.2.2.2 Physical act
- 2.2.2.3 Human capital
- 2.2.3 Definitions of entrepreneurship
- 2.2.4 Background and personality characteristics of the entrepreneur
- 2.2.4.1 Background of the entrepreneur
- 2.2.4.1.1 Education
- 2.2.4.1.2 Childhood experience
- 2.2.4.1.3 Age
- 2.2.4.1.4 Work experience
- 2.2.4.2 Personality characteristics of the entrepreneur
- 2.2.4.2.1 Openness
- 2.2.4.2.2 Extroversion
- 2.2.4.2.3 Agreeableness
- 2.2.4.2.4 Conscientiousness
- 2.2.4.2.5 Neuroticism
- 2.2.5 Motivating factors for becoming an entrepreneur
- 2.2.6 Immigrants and self-employment
- 2.2.7 The entrepreneurial process
- 2.2.7.1 Identification and evaluation of the opportunity
- 2.2.7.2 Development of a business plan
- 2.2.7.3 Determination of the resource requirement
- 2.2.7.4 Management of the enterprise
- 2.2.8 Entrepreneurship and the economy
- 2.3 Small business
- 2.3.1 The rise of small businesses – a world historical view
- 2.3.2 Small business contribution to the economy
- 2.3.3 Small business development
- 2.3.3.1 Access to finance
- 2.3.3.2 Business enabling environment
- 2.3.3.3 Support services
- 2.3.3.4 The government
- 2.3.3.5 The big business
- 2.3.3.6 The SMEs
- 2.3.4 Small and medium enterprise (SME) sector in the SADC region
- 2.3.4.1 Swaziland
- 2.3.4.2 South Africa
- 2.3.4.3 Mozambique
- 2.3.5 Failure and success of small businesses
- 2.3.5.1 Failure of small businesses
- 2.3.5.2 Success of small business
- 2.3.5.2.1 The external/exogenous factors
- 2.3.5.2.2 The internal/ endogenous factors
- 2.4 Chapter summary
- Chapter Three: Immigrant entrepreneurship
- 3.1 Introduction
- 3.2 Migration
- 3.3 Migration in southern Africa
- 3.4 Immigrant entrepreneurship
- 3.5 Theoretical foundation underpinning the study
- 3.5.1 Human capital
- 3.5.1.1 Managerial skill
- 3.5.1.2 Level of education
- 3.5.1.3 Previous experience
- 3.5.1.4 Risk-taken propensity
- 3.5.2 Economic capital
- 3.5.2.1 Business service
- 3.5.2.2 Location
- 3.5.2.3 Financial bootstrapping
- 3.5.3 Social capital
- 3.5.3.1 Language
- 3.5.3.2 Networking
- 3.6 Coping ability and business growth
- 3.7 Conceptual coping cube and model
- 3.8 Chapter summary
- Chapter Four: Research methodology
- 4.1 Introduction
- 4.2 Restatement of research purpose and objectives
- 4.2.1 The purpose of the research
- 4.2.2 The research objectives
- 4.2.3 Research assumptions
- 4.3 Types of research
- 4.3.1 Explanatory research
- 4.3.2 Predictive research
- 4.3.3 Exploratory research
- 4.3.4 Descriptive research
- 4.4 Research paradigms
- 4.4.1 Positivistic paradigms
- 4.4.2 Phenomenological/ interpretivistic paradigms
- 4.4.3 Deductive versus inductive reasoning
- 4.5 The research approach
- 4.5.1 Rational for choosing a quantitative research
- 4.6 Research method
- 4.7 Respondent population and data
- 4.7.1 Research population
- 4.7.1.1 The target population
- 4.7.2 Sampling
- 4.7.2.1 Sample frame
- 4.7.2.2 Sample element
- 4.7.2.3 Sample size
- 4.8 Data collection
- References
- Annexure A Research questionnaire
- Annexure B Ethical clearance
