Sweden is today faced with one of the most extensive refugee waves in the history of the nation. The refugees’ attain valuable competences which are not being exploited, and alienation is becoming a serious societal problem. Researchers have stressed the importance of entrepreneurship and its positive effects on national socio-economic growth. The experience of immigrating has shown to trigger entrepreneurial activities, and it has become an apparent strategy of immigrant entrepreneurs’ to include home country resources and networks in their businesses in order to stay competitive. This has come to be known as transnational entrepreneurship, and the concept has proven to be even more favorable due to its positive socio-economic effects on dual contexts. This thesis considers the idea of refugees engaging in transnational entrepreneurship as a strategy to diminish the ongoing crisis. To enable this, a qualitative study was conducted to analyze the process of already established entrepreneurs with a refugee background. By doing so, practical and theoretical implications were able to be identified, subsequently contributing today’s refugees with valuable information on how to successfully engage in transnational entrepreneurship. By applying the theory of Effectuation on four individual cases, the authors were able to identify key aspects, allowing them to draw generalizations and final conclusions.   The outcome of this study suggests a distance to the homogeneous perspective given transnational entrepreneurs, and instead an added dimension considering the immigrants’ motives to migration. The findings in this thesis present how the resources and networks held by the transnational entrepreneurs relocate as a consequence of the additional aspect of the immigrants’ background as refugees. Furthermore, the findings of this thesis have added the dimension of multiple contexts to the theory of Effectuation and thereby enabled the theory to be applicable on an international business level.

Transnational entrepreneurship (TE) has been in the spotlight as an emerging field during the last decade. Previously being viewed from international entrepreneurship (IE) and ethnic entrepreneurship (EE) perspectives, TE has recently demarcating its own territory. However, the exact boundary in which TE differs from IE and EE is yet to be studied. This research is aiming to explore the interface of TE, IE, and EE through the entrepreneurs’ sets of resources—economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital. By studying the case of ten immigrant entrepreneurs in Jönköping context, we found four key features that distinguish TE with the rest: access to the sets of resources, economic and social development, ownership structure, and business operations.

The past economic dictate of large-scale production has worn out; the era of the managed economy has eventually come to an end. Instead, entrepreneurship is taking over as the new driver of worldwide economic development. Today, the people from the Lebanon have become an allegory for successful entrepreneurial endeavours abroad. Existing theories demonstrated that the experiences arising from migration enhance the ability to discover entrepreneurial opportunities. However, only a few academic sources actively discussed and explored the phenomenon of Lebanese entrepreneurship, thus leaving a gap for research. On these grounds, the purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurs of Lebanese origin engage in entrepreneurial activities in Sweden. The country of Sweden is facing a major transformation in its economic structure. Previously dependent on the export of raw materials, Sweden is now moving towards a knowledge-intensive economy, a shift that naturally results in an increase of entrepreneurial activities. In the theory chapter, various sub-concepts of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial process as well as the definition of a diaspora and its characteristics are explored. The following research question was elaborated: How does the entrepreneurial process of entrepreneurs with Lebanese origins, building up their economic activities in Sweden, look like? In order to gather the necessary empirical data to address the research question, four semi-structured interviews were conducted. In the analysis chapter, the collected data was scrutinized and matched with frameworks and theories extracted from the theory chapter. The final chapter contains the conclusion and limitations of this study, and makes suggestions for further research. This thesis contributes to existing research by providing information about the entrepreneurial process of immigrants, when setting up a business in Sweden. The main implication of this thesis constitutes that each entrepreneur has pursued their unique entrepreneurial path. Similarities were detected in the willingness to contribute to the Swedish society by proving their capabilities and the shared affiliation to their Lebanese heritage. Variances were found in the entrepreneurial processes as well as in the reasons for their involvement in entrepreneurial activities. To illustrate, some of the surveyed entrepreneurs discovered an entrepreneurial opportunity, whereas others created opportunities through their deliberate action.

This thesis aims to examine how differences in personal attributes and cultural adaptation affect transnational entrepreneurs' embedding process in Sweden. This paper uses empirical data collected from four small transnational entrepreneurs in Sweden as well as secondary data collected on the topic. The findings shows that background, skills and character have an influence on the embedding process and provides these entrepreneurs with knowledge and opportunities native Swedish entrepreneurs do not have access to. Furthermore, it provides the importance of language during the embedding process. Lastly the thesis discusses implications in practice and for theory and ends with proposals for future research.

In Deutschland hat ein kleiner Anteil der deutschtürkischen UnternehmerInnen in letzter Zeit vielerlei wirtschaftliche Kontakte zu verschiedenen Ländern hergestellt und weltweit transnationale Firmen gegründet. Die vorliegende qualitative Studie zeigt, dass es nicht im Wesentlichen ethnische Netzwerke waren, auf die sie dabei gebaut haben, sondern dass sie aufgrund ihrer eigenen Voraussetzungen (hoher Bildungsstand, Fachwissen, Erfahrung, Unternehmergeist) in der Lage sind, die Möglichkeiten zu nutzen, die sich aus dem globalen Wandel ergeben. Im Gegensatz zu transnationalen Aktivitäten, die frühere Studien für die Amerikas dokumentieren, sind deutschtürkische transnationale UnternehmerInnen vielseitiger und globaler. Zum einen handeln Sie mit Textilien, Elektronik, Technologie, Unterhaltung, Tourismus und Lebensmitteln. Zum anderen unterhalten sie Geschäftsbeziehungen zu KundInnen aus der ganzen Welt, aus Asien, Afrika, Europa, Australien und den Amerikas. Grundsätzlich kann man sagen, dass deutschtürkische transnationale UntermehmerInnen vielseitige Verbindungen in den verschiedensten Länder der Welt pflegen und dass ihr unternehmerischer Erfolg nicht maßgeblich von Verbindungen zur Türkei abhängt. / In Germany, a minority of Turkish immigrant entrepreneurs recently have developed multiple economic linkages with different countries, and set up transnational firms across the globe. This qualitative research finds that they have not relied heavily on the ethnic networks but draw on sufficient human capital to exploit resources and opportunities arising from the globalising changes. Compared to the transnational activities in previous studies conducted in the Americas, the Turkish transnational entrepreneurs are more diverse and global. First, their ventures include textiles, electronics, technology, entertainment, tourism and food production. Second, their clientele is worldwide covering Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and the Americas. In essence, the Turkish transnational entrepreneurs have developed multiple ties that span different countries all over the world, and their economic success is not largely dependent on ties with their home country.