Abstract The purpose of this research is to understand problems faced by immigrant entrepreneurs while establishing their business in Sweden and their interactions with the Swedish support system and how that support system engages with and support immigrant entrepreneurs. It is important for the state and society that immigrant entrepreneurs could integrate into the society and add their positive input for themselves and for society. This is a qualitative research study that entails an engaged scholarship method and data will be collected through semi structured interviews from immigrant entrepreneurs and representatives from organizations that support entrepreneurs on a local level in the town of Växjö, in the south of Sweden. The framework developed in the article include problems of immigrant entrepreneurs  and developing suggestions to figure out these problems by improving support with effective practices of government actions, incubation, mentoring, coaching, collaborations and networking.

MCom (Business Management) / Department of Business Management / The spaza-shop sector is an integral part of the Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) in the South African economy. The industry is made up of more than 100 000 enterprises with a collective annual turnover of R7 billion. Spaza shops also contribute about 4% (about 100 000 jobs) of employment in the informal sector. Spaza shops usually have a short lifespan and rarely grow; the failure rate of spaza shops, including those owned by immigrants is very high in South Africa. It is estimated that the failure rate of small businesses (including spaza shops) in South Africa is between 70% and 80%. It is also noted that about 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years of commencement of business, irrespective of the country. Despite severe competitive pressures faced by SMMEs, immigrants (especially Somalis and Ethiopians) have established a strong foothold in the spaza-shop sector. The main objective of the study was to investigate the success factors of immigrant-owned spaza shops in Thulamela Local Municipality. To address the research question, which focuses on the lived experiences and perceptions of participants, the interpretivist paradigm was used. A qualitative approach was adopted with a sample of 25 participants; purposive sampling was used to select participants with the required characteristics. Structured interview questions administered through face-to-face interviews were used to collect data and content analysis was used to analyse data. The data collected revealed that there are a plethora of success factors that are enhancing the continuance and sustenance of immigrant spaza shops in Thulamela Local Municipality. Of these, the most frequently given ones include - human capital, networks, culture, superior customer service, long operating hours and business location. The researcher recommended that immigrant spaza-shop entrepreneurs should establish a mentorship program that will assist in training other local spaza-owners to successfully manage their enterprises, in a bid to create harmony within the sector and to promote job creation. / NRF

This research investigates how immigrant entrepreneurs in the falafel business in Malmö position themselves in relation to the host society. Interviews with five immigrant entrepreneurs in the falafel trade were conducted to explore their life stories, business endeavours and their relations with the host society. The data was then analysed to establish the degree to which they feel embedded in different arenas of the host society and their society of origin. This study confirms the disadvantageous position of immigrants in Swedish society, though demonstrates the various strategies they utilise to improve their situation through entrepreneurship. The study, the first of its kind in Malmö, is important in the context of rising xenophobia in Sweden and segregation in the city.

Research Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the socio-cultural barriers that self-employed immigrant entrepreneur’s face and the overcoming factors that help them to survive. Research Questions: 1. What are the socio-cultural barriers that immigrant entrepreneurs face in the context of self- employment? 2. What are the factors that help immigrant entrepreneurs to overcome the socio-cultural barriers? Methodology: This study is followed by qualitative research and explorative approach. The data collection was done by semi-structured interviews. Ten immigrant entrepreneurs are the convenience sample of our study. Findings: Language, legislation and lack of trust are the most unfavorable socio-cultural barriers that self-employed immigrant entrepreneurs face in the host country. Result shows that knowing the right information is important for immigrant entrepreneurs. For technology, immigrant entrepreneurs are now learning more about it by themselves. Besides, technology helps them to learn the language faster as it is more convenient than in school. Their previous experience and transnational identity are their biggest strength that helped them to break the socio-cultural wall. Immigrant entrepreneurs are often influenced by the native people in a positive way and that influences drive them to learn new things to overcome those barriers. The co-ethnic networks do not always play a positive role rather this study found that these networks actually play a dual role. Research Limitations: All of our sample are collected from Sweden, but for language and laws, the result might vary from person to person from different corners of the wall. This study was concerned with the self-employed entrepreneurs; not with the large level of enterprises.

<p>Entrepreneurship is an important part of every country‟s economy. With the recent flow of migration to many countries, immigrant entrepreneurs have received interest from both societal and economical scholars to measure the effect they create on the home country economically or demographically. In Sweden as well as in other European countries, the rate of migration increases significantly. Upon migrating to Sweden, immigrants enters the labor market but difficulties in integrating into the labor market drive immigrants toward self-employment and thus becoming immigrant entrepreneurs.A nationality which has a long history of migration to Sweden and account for a considerable proportion of immigrants coming to Sweden every year are the Thai, but there is little research on this group of immigrants. The purpose of the study is to find out how Thai entrepreneurs use social capital in starting their business venture in Sweden. In the theoretical chapter, entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurs are first defined, then the relationship between networking and entrepreneurship is discussed, followed by a section on social capital and its relationship with immigrant entrepreneurs. The literature suggests that entrepreneurs usually go through 3 stages of venture creation: idea generation, resource acquisition and market organization. With the help of social capital through their social network, entrepreneurs retrieve benefit from their network members in several aspects throughout these stages.We conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with seven Thai entrepreneurs in Sweden who work in food, health-care, retail and lodging businesses. Both the business network and the ethnic network, in this case Thai network, have important roles when Thai entrepreneurs develop new business ventures. Social capital assists the entrepreneurs in solving the difficulties faced during establishment process, such as labor, taxation and legitimacy. In addition, social capital enables the entrepreneurs in information and resource acquisition, word of mouth advertisement and business registration. Further, family members and spouses are found to be significantly important for Thai entrepreneurs in Sweden as a source of labor, capital and business partners.</p> / Master thesis 15p spring term 2010

Entrepreneurship is an important part of every country‟s economy. With the recent flow of migration to many countries, immigrant entrepreneurs have received interest from both societal and economical scholars to measure the effect they create on the home country economically or demographically. In Sweden as well as in other European countries, the rate of migration increases significantly. Upon migrating to Sweden, immigrants enters the labor market but difficulties in integrating into the labor market drive immigrants toward self-employment and thus becoming immigrant entrepreneurs.A nationality which has a long history of migration to Sweden and account for a considerable proportion of immigrants coming to Sweden every year are the Thai, but there is little research on this group of immigrants. The purpose of the study is to find out how Thai entrepreneurs use social capital in starting their business venture in Sweden. In the theoretical chapter, entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurs are first defined, then the relationship between networking and entrepreneurship is discussed, followed by a section on social capital and its relationship with immigrant entrepreneurs. The literature suggests that entrepreneurs usually go through 3 stages of venture creation: idea generation, resource acquisition and market organization. With the help of social capital through their social network, entrepreneurs retrieve benefit from their network members in several aspects throughout these stages.We conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with seven Thai entrepreneurs in Sweden who work in food, health-care, retail and lodging businesses. Both the business network and the ethnic network, in this case Thai network, have important roles when Thai entrepreneurs develop new business ventures. Social capital assists the entrepreneurs in solving the difficulties faced during establishment process, such as labor, taxation and legitimacy. In addition, social capital enables the entrepreneurs in information and resource acquisition, word of mouth advertisement and business registration. Further, family members and spouses are found to be significantly important for Thai entrepreneurs in Sweden as a source of labor, capital and business partners. / Master thesis 15p spring term 2010

Background &amp; Problem discussion: Recently, there has been an increased interest in topics such as immigrant entrepreneurship. Considering that most of the research until now is done in America with American examples, it would be beneficial if such results are verified or refuted in other countries as well, such as Sweden (Brundin, Bögenhold and Sundin, 2001). Overall, businesses ran by immigrant entrepreneurs are creating job opportunities and encouraging Europe’s economy, even though exposed to limited immigration policies and unpleasant public opinion (Halkias et al., 2007). Immigrant entrepreneurs are not a new phenomenon in Sweden and according to Hammarstedt (2004) immigrant self-employment compared to native small-businesses has increased throughout the years, and therefore an important role in the integration of immigrants was made possible by the self-employment sector as a source of employment. Rather than that, most of the research done in this topic by many researchers has been focused in factors triggering immigrant entrepreneurs to start a business, but less researchers were focused in understanding the challenges they face and strategies they adopt in order to survive. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to identify challenges that immigrant entrepreneurs face while starting and running their businesses and analyze how they are interrelated and how do immigrant entrepreneurs cope with them in the setting of a medium-sized town in Sweden. Jönköping as a medium sized town in Sweden is our context. Theoretical framework: The literature used in this study covers studies conducted in different context such as: American, European and Swedish. The conducted studies involve case studies in different context done with immigrant entrepreneurs are mainly about the challenges they face and the strategies they adopt as solutions to those challenges. Such theory helped us identify common challenges among immigrant entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, considering that the existing literature does not explicitly discuss the role of the context (metropolitan, large city, medium-sized town, small (rural town), local community etc), we have to inquire especially into that and use our own data to build a supplementary theory. Method: The method used in this study is a qualitative approach but also with some minor elements of a quantitative approach (the use of the questionnaire during the interviews asked from the respondents to rank the challenges and therefore helped to find out the most significant challenge among them). Considering that generally our study followed a qualitative approach, we have conducted ‘face-to-face’ interviews. There were eight semi-structured interviews. All of the interviews were tape recorded. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that challenges faced by our respondents were: start-up finance, finance for growth, access to markets, lack of language skills, lack of marketing/sales skills, lack of management skills, access to technology, lack of education, lack of visitors to Jönköping, maintaining customers, Swede’s negative views on immigrant businesses, awareness of food among customers, and competition. However, the four most significant challenges among them were: access to markets, start-up finance, lack of language skills and finance for growth. Besides that the findings show that the strategies that are adopted by immigrant entrepreneurs that we interviewed include the following: use of personal savings, use of personal networks, bank loan, enter low market barriers, scanning the market beforehand, asking help from their customers about language barriers or taking a language course before starting, among others. The findings showed that the context is important to a great extent but besides context, in order for the immigrant venture to occur it matters to a great extent, who the individual entrepreneur is and what business idea he/she develops. In addition, they are key factors contributing not only to the immigrant venture occurrence, but also to the success of the business.

Både entreprenörskap och invandring har ökat kraftigt i Sverige, såväl som globalt. Idag finns det över en miljon bolag i Sverige där enmansföretag (74,8%) och mikroföretag (21,7%) utgör den största delen. Detta ger en klar syn över att det svenska näringslivet domineras främst av mindre företag. Bakom många av dessa mindre företag står individer med utländsk bakgrund. Under 2010 talades det om att var sjunde företag som startas i Sverige, drivs av en individ med rötter från en annan del av världen.En av de viktigaste drivkrafterna för ett lands ekonomiska tillväxt är företag, vilket är en stor anledning till att fokus ligger på hur dessa väljer att finansiera sin verksamhet. Problemet för många invandrarföretagare är svårigheten med att erhålla extern finansiering under företagets livscykel, vilket leder till att alternativa finansieringsmetoder används som bootstrapping. Bootstrapping betyder att ”ta sig själv i kragen” samt att se till att bli ”självförsörjande”. Forskare menar på att företagarens egenskaper också spelar en väsentlig roll vid val av finansiering.Syftet med denna uppsats är att utforska huruvida invandrarföretagarens användning av bootstrapping påverkas av företagarens egenskaper och företagets livscykel. En hermeneutisk forskningsfilosofi har använts tillsammans med en deduktiv ansats och en kvalitativ metod. Detta för att skapa en djupare förståelse för ett okänt område. Den kvalitativa undersökningen har genomförts med hjälp av åtta respondenter för att ge svar på studiens problemformulering och syfte.Uppsatsen indikerar på att invandrarföretagare främst använder sig av ägarfinansierad under introduktions- samt tillväxtfasen. Studien påvisar att fördröjande bootstrapping även är en vanlig metod som invandrarföretagare använder sig utav under tillväxtfasen. En annan metod som också är användbar men inte i lika stor utsträckning är relationsorienterad bootstrapping. De mest påverkande egenskaperna vid användning av bootstrapping är företagarens kontrollbehov över verksamheten samt riskbenägenhet mot externa finansiärer. / Both entrepreneurship and immigration has increased dramatically in Sweden, as well as globally. Today there are over a million companies in Sweden where one-person (74.8%) and micro enterprises (21.7%) represent the largest portion. This gives a clear view that the Swedish economy is dominated by small firms. Behind many of these smaller companies are individuals with a foreign background. In 2010 it was shown that every seventh company that was started in Sweden, operated by a person with roots from another part of the world.One of the main forces of a country's economic growth is the companies, which is a major reason that focus lies on how they choose to finance their business. The problem for many immigrant entrepreneurs is difficulty in obtaining external financing during its life-cycle, which leads to alternative financing methods used, named bootstrapping. Bootstrapping means to “lift oneself up” and make sure to become “self-sufficient”. Scientists believe that the entrepreneur's characteristics also play a significant role in the choice of financing.The purpose of this paper is to explore whether immigrant entrepreneur's use of bootstrapping is affected by the entrepreneur's characteristics and the company’s life cycle. A hermeneutic research philosophy has been used in conjunction with a deductive and a qualitative approach. The reason for using a qualitative approach is to create a deeper understanding of an unfamiliar area. The qualitative study has been performed with the help of eight respondents to answer the study's problem and purpose.The paper indicates that immigrant entrepreneurs mainly uses owner-financed in the introduction and growth phase. The study demonstrates that delaying bootstrapping is also a common method that immigrant entrepreneurs use during the growth phase. Another method that is also used but not as much as the other two methods is relationship oriented bootstrapping. The most influencing characteristics when using bootstrapping is the need of control over the business and risk aversion against external financiers.

After going through the literature on entrepreneurship we found that very little studies have been done whether culture and family business traditions influence the decisions of entrepreneurship. Most people from the South and Southeast Asia had cultural and family business backgrounds. The purpose of our study is to investigate if culture and family business traditions of South andSoutheast Asian immigrants affect their decision to become self-employed and if so how. This will enhance the understanding of whether this factor is also important to motivate the entrepreneurs to be self-employed. Most of the studies have pointed out the motivational factors such as pull factors and push factors as being the main influencing factors for immigrant entrepreneurs to choose self-employment. Although, there are various literatures on entrepreneurship and its motivating factors, cultural and family based business traditions, limited study has focused on showing how the cultural and family business background affect the decision making abilities of the entrepreneurs. We have focused on the immigrant entrepreneurs born in South and Southeast Asian region operating their businesses in Umea city. For conducting this study we have used semi-structured interviews from our six respondents to collect the data. Based on our findings we found that the entrepreneurs are influenced by culture and family business traditions. Their social identity plays an important role in motivating them to become entrepreneurs. These immigrants are exposed to business environment from a very early age which helps shape up their business minds. The experience gained from their parents and the cultural and family business traditions act as business opportunity for them in the host country. We believe that this study would be helpful in the future for other scholars who are willing to conduct further research on this particular topic of interest. Our findings have increased the understanding of how the cultural and family business traditions of South and Southeast Asian region do affect the entrepreneurs’ decision to become self-employed in Umea.

<p><strong>Background & Problem discussion: </strong>Recently, there has been an increased interest in topics such as immigrant entrepreneurship. Considering that most of the research until now is done in America with American examples, it would be beneficial if such results are verified or refuted in other countries as well, such as Sweden (Brundin, Bögenhold and Sundin, 2001). Overall, businesses ran by immigrant entrepreneurs are creating job opportunities and encouraging Europe’s economy, even though exposed to limited immigration policies and unpleasant public opinion (Halkias et al., 2007). Immigrant entrepreneurs are not a new phenomenon in Sweden and according to Hammarstedt (2004) immigrant self-employment compared to native small-businesses has increased throughout the years, and therefore an important role in the integration of immigrants was made possible by the self-employment sector as a source of employment.</p><p>Rather than that, most of the research done in this topic by many researchers has been focused in factors triggering immigrant entrepreneurs to start a business, but less researchers were focused in understanding the challenges they face and strategies they adopt in order to survive.</p><p><strong>Purpose: </strong>The purpose of this thesis is to <em>identify</em> challenges that immigrant entrepreneurs face while starting and running their businesses and <em>analyze</em> how they are interrelated and how do immigrant entrepreneurs <em>cope</em> with them in the setting of a medium-sized town in Sweden. Jönköping as a medium sized town in Sweden is our context.</p><p><strong>Theoretical framework: </strong>The literature used in this study covers studies conducted in different context such as: American, European and Swedish. The conducted studies involve case studies in different context done with immigrant entrepreneurs are mainly about the challenges they face and the strategies they adopt as solutions to those challenges. Such theory helped us identify common challenges among immigrant entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, considering that the existing literature does not explicitly discuss the role of the context (metropolitan, large city, medium-sized town, small (rural town), local community etc), we have to inquire especially into that and use our own data to build a supplementary theory.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>The method used in this study is a qualitative approach but also with some minor elements of a quantitative approach (the use of the questionnaire during the interviews asked from the respondents to rank the challenges and therefore helped to find out the most significant challenge among them). Considering that generally our study followed a qualitative approach, we have conducted ‘face-to-face’ interviews. There were eight semi-structured interviews. All of the interviews were tape recorded.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The findings of this study showed that challenges faced by our respondents were: start-up finance, finance for growth, access to markets, lack of language skills, lack of marketing/sales skills, lack of management skills, access to technology, lack of education, lack of visitors to Jönköping, maintaining customers, Swede’s negative views on immigrant businesses, awareness of food among customers, and competition. However, the four most significant challenges among them were: access to markets, start-up finance, lack of language skills and finance for growth.</p><p>Besides that the findings show that the strategies that are adopted by immigrant entrepreneurs that we interviewed include the following: use of personal savings, use of personal networks, bank loan, enter low market barriers, scanning the market beforehand, asking help from their customers about language barriers or taking a language course before starting, among others.</p><p>The findings showed that the context is important to a great extent but besides context, in order for the immigrant venture to occur it matters to a great extent, who the individual entrepreneur is and what business idea he/she develops. In addition, they are key factors contributing not only to the immigrant venture occurrence, but also to the success of the business.</p>