Institutional Reform And Diaspora Entrepreneurs

Externally-promoted institutional reform, even when nominally accepted by developing country governments, often fails to deliver lasting change. Diasporans-immigrants who still feel a connection to their country of origin-may offer an In-Between Advantage for institutional reform, which links problem understanding with potential solutions, and encompasses vision, impact, operational, and psycho-social advantages. Individuals with entrepreneurial characteristics can catalyzing institutional reform. Diasporans may have particular advantages for entrepreneurship, as they live both psychologically and materially between the place of origin they left and the new destination they have embraced. Their entrepreneurial characteristics may be accidental, cultivated through the migration and diaspora experience, or innate to individuals' personalities. This book articulates the diaspora institutional entrepreneur In-Between Advantage, proposes a model for understanding the characteristics and motivational influences of entrepreneurs generally and how they apply to diaspora entrepreneurs in particular, and presents a staged model of institutional entrepreneur actions. I test these frameworks through case narratives of social institutional reform in Egypt, economic institutional reform in Ethiopia, and political institutional reform in Chad. In addition to identifying policy implications, this book makes important theoretical contributions in three areas. First, it builds on existing and emerging critiques of international development assistance that articulate prescriptions related to alternative theories of change. Second, it fills an important gap in the literature by focusing squarely on the role of agency in institutional reform processes while still accounting for organizational systems and socio-political contexts. In doing so, it integrates a more expansive view of entrepreneurism into extant understandings of institutional entrepreneurism, and it sheds light on what happens in the frequently-invoked black box of agency. Third, it demonstrates the fallacy of many theoretical frameworks that seek to order institutional change processes into neatly definable linear stages.

"An investigation of diaspora institutional entrepreneurship"--

With increased movements of people around the world, the role of transnational economic activity is becoming ever more significant. Yet little is understood about the motivations and contribution of those who return to their homeland to undertake entrepreneurial activity. The Diaspora and Returnee Entrepreneurship analyzes the role that the diaspora play when returning as entrepreneurs to their homeland. Nick Williams investigates "returnee entrepreneurs," or people who have moved away from their home country, lived as part of the diaspora, and later returned home to live, invest, or both. Based on exhaustive research, this book examines the motivations and activities of these returnee entrepreneurs coming back to challenging homeland economies. Williams draws on evidence from the post-conflict economies of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro, all of which are characterized by relatively weak institutional environments. His analysis shows how return to complex environments is often not based on perceived profit opportunities but is due to an emotional attachment informing investment decisions. Exploring questions of isolation versus assimilation, institutional involvement, and personal networking, the book covers more than just the policy approaches that extract higher levels of remittances and studies broad and varied approaches being used by governments around the world, specifically those in post-conflict economies. Through an in-depth study of the dynamics of return and entrepreneurship, this book shows that concerted efforts need to be made to improve perceptions of state political institutions among the diaspora to secure further assimilation, investment, and prosperity. Williams proves that by understanding the challenges and opportunities associated with diaspora return entrepreneurship, more effective strategies can, and should, be put in place.

Externally-promoted institutional reform, even when nominally accepted by developing country governments, often fails to deliver lasting change. Diasporans-immigrants who still feel a connection to their country of origin-may offer an In-Between Advantage for institutional reform, which links problem understanding with potential solutions, and encompasses vision, impact, operational, and psycho-social advantages. Individuals with entrepreneurial characteristics can catalyzing institutional reform. Diasporans may have particular advantages for entrepreneurship, as they live both psychologically and materially between the place of origin they left and the new destination they have embraced. Their entrepreneurial characteristics may be accidental, cultivated through the migration and diaspora experience, or innate to individuals' personalities. This book articulates the diaspora institutional entrepreneur In-Between Advantage, proposes a model for understanding the characteristics and motivational influences of entrepreneurs generally and how they apply to diaspora entrepreneurs in particular, and presents a staged model of institutional entrepreneur actions. I test these frameworks through case narratives of social institutional reform in Egypt, economic institutional reform in Ethiopia, and political institutional reform in Chad. In addition to identifying policy implications, this book makes important theoretical contributions in three areas. First, it builds on existing and emerging critiques of international development assistance that articulate prescriptions related to alternative theories of change. Second, it fills an important gap in the literature by focusing squarely on the role of agency in institutional reform processes while still accounting for organizational systems and socio-political contexts. In doing so, it integrates a more expansive view of entrepreneurism into extant understandings of institutional entrepreneurism, and it sheds light on what happens in the frequently-invoked black box of agency. Third, it demonstrates the fallacy of many theoretical frameworks that seek to order institutional change processes into neatly definable linear stages.

Diaspora networks' role in supporting and stimulating entrepreneurial activities in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies need hardly be elaborated. Some SSA countries, for instance, have established government agencies to encourage diasporas to help local communities, and provide policy advice. At the 2003 Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments, the African Union (AU) amended Article Three of its Constitutive Act to invite and encourage African diaspora's active participation. Institutional changes associated with diaspora networks, however, are a phenomenon that has been noted but poorly understood. This paper addresses a little examined intersection between the diaspora literature and the institutions literature. We examine the contexts, mechanisms and processes associated with diaspora networks' roles as institutional change agents in the context of entrepreneurial behaviors in SSA economies. Our dependent variables are measures of changes in institutions associated with diaspora network. We have related our analysis mainly to the nature of the diaspora networks compared to other networks, characteristics of the environments in which diaspora networks are embedded in and operate, and some activities, mechanisms and modes that serve to transmit institutions from the host country to the homeland.

The advancement and progression of migrant businesses has increased significantly in the globalized modern society. As such, current research has emerged regarding the characteristics of transnational economic activities. Diasporas and Transnational Entrepreneurship in Global Contexts is an essential reference publication for the latest material on the nature, process, and outcome of migrant entrepreneurs’ economic activities expanding from their countries of origin to their countries of residence. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics, such as regional growth, industrial development, and employment generation, this book is ideally designed for researchers, advanced-level students, practitioners, managers, and policy-makers seeking current research on how economic development can be encouraged and nurtured among ethnic entrepreneurs and businesses.

Diasporas large-scale ethnic migrations have been a source of growing concern as we try to understand the nature of community, identity and nationalism. Traditionally, diaspora communities have been understood to be pariah communities, and most work on diasporas has focused on specific groups such as the Jewish or African Diaspora. This book is unique in arguing against traditional interpretations and in taking a comparative look at a range of diasporas, including the Jewish, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Maltese, Greek and Armenian diasporas.Taking the past four centuries into consideration, the authors examine diaspora trading networks across the globe on both a regional and international level. They investigate the common patterns and practices in the enterprises of diaspora peoples and entrepreneurs. The regions covered include Western Europe, the Mediterranean, South West Asia and the Indian Ocean, and South East Asia. Global networks of diaspora trading groups were crucial to international trade well before the twentieth century, yet because they were not part of established institutions they have remained elusive to economists, sociologists and historians.Through an understanding of diaspora trading networks, we learn not only about diaspora communities but also about the roots of the modern global economy.

This book brings together the research fields of start-up ecosystems and diaspora entrepreneurship. The author interprets the results of semi-structured interviews with four diaspora entrepreneurs and four experts in Berlin, as well as observations from field studies and the analysis of secondary sources. The findings prove impacts of diaspora ventures on the dynamics of the Berlin start-up ecosystem and are applied to a modified version of the ANDE toolkit. Identified domains of the start-up ecosystem Berlin are demonstrated. Berlin is among the top locations of start-up activities world-wide and currently the most dynamic ecosystem globally.

This contributed volume focuses on diasporans, their characteristics, networks, resources and activities in relation to international business and entrepreneurship. It presents an overview of diaspora concepts from an economic perspective, and analyzes the global-economic and societal effects and mechanisms, revealing both positive and negative aspects of diaspora activities. Providing insights into the socio-cultural influences, it discusses diaspora entrepreneurship and international business, the respective organisational models, investments and business types. Lastly it offers an assessment of managing diaspora resources and policymaking. This book was created by an interdisciplinary team of editors, co-authors and reviewers including historians, sociologists, psychologists, linguists and ethnologists, as well as experts in public policy, international business, marketing and entrepreneurship. This unique team (many of the authors are themselves diasporans with an extensive understanding of their topic) provides the first global academic platform on the subject, combining the latest empirical evidence from developing, emerging, transitional and developed countries with various combinations of diaspora flows that to date have received little attention.

Why do conflict-generated diasporas mobilize in contentious and non-contentious ways or use mixed strategies? This book develops a theory of socio-spatial positionality and its implications for the individual agency of diaspora entrepreneurs. A novel typology features four types of diaspora entrepreneurs--Broker, Local, Distant, and Reserved--depending on the relative strength of their socio-spatial linkages to host-land, original homeland, and other global locations. A two-level typological theory captures nine causal pathways unravelling how diaspora entrepreneurs operatein transnational social fields and interact with host-land foreign policies, homeland governments, parties, non-state actors, critical events, and limited global influences. Non-contention often occurs when diaspora entrepreneurs act autonomously and when host\'02state foreign policies converge with their goals. Dual-prongedcontention is common under the influence of homeland governments, non-state actors, and political parties. The most contention occurs in response to violent events in the original homeland or adjacent to it fragile states. The book is informed by 300 interviews among the Albanian, Armenian, and Palestinian diasporas connected to de facto states, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Palestine respectively. Interviews were conducted in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Brusselsin Belgium, as well as Kosovo and Armenia in the European neighbourhood.