The upgrading of workforce skills is key to the competitiveness of SMEs. In today’s business environment there is a premium on innovation that enables firms to develop new products and services, new production processes and new business models. This requires both in-house innovation and the ability to absorb knowledge from other firms and organisations, both of which call for a skilled labour force. Skills are also a critical but understated resource for entrepreneurship seen in the sense of business creation. Similarly to workforce skills, entrepreneurship skills will boost the competitiveness of local businesses thanks to the improved strategic and management competences of the entrepreneur.

1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES)
Center for Urban Studies
Promoting
Ethnic Entrepreneurship
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6. Ethnic entrepreneurs
A simple, one-dimensional category?
Pertaining to mom-and-pop stores only?
Ethnic and (im)migrant: synonyms?
Ethnic identity may influence daily business
operations, product range, marketing, financial
strategy, staffing and staff management, etc
But this must be proven
In practice: multiple variations
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7. Share of Self-Employment in the Total Employment Native
and Foreign Born, 2007-2009 (%). Source: OECD 2010

8. Understanding (ethnic) entrepreneurship:
mixed embeddedness
Personal factors: motivation, education and
language, professional skills and
competences, financial capital, social networks
Opportunity structure: political, social and economic
institutions, market developments, rules and
regulations
 See Kloosterman, R. & J. Rath (2003) Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Venturing Abroad in the
Age of Globalization. Oxford/New York: Berg/University of New York Press.
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9. Promoting ethnic entrepreneurship:
two surveys
1. A general inventory of measures to promote ethnic
entrepreneurship in 32 European countries (2008)
2. A deeper inventory of interventions in 28 European
cities (2011)
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10. www.janrath.comwww.janrath.com 10

11. Why absence of policies?
 Immigrants not (yet?) entrepreneurial
 Belief that immigrants were not disadvantaged
 Integration policies biased towards socio-cultural
matters
 Belief that group-specific measures were ‘not done’
 A strict non-interventionist logic prevailed
11

12. Structural determinants
 Specifics of immigration history
 Specifics of immigrant incorporation regime
 Make-up of welfare state and concomitant
entrepreneurial trajectories
12

13. Choice of measures (2008)
Information 121
Advice 121
Training 107
Networking 96
Mentoring 84
(Access to) finance 79
Other 1 13

14. Choice of measures (2011)
 Advice and information services
 Finding a business location
 Access to finance
 Finding customers
 Building local connections and mobilizing transnational
links
 Finding and managing personnel
 Improving skills needed for business
 Targeting doubly disadvantaged groups
 Regulation and deregulation
 Urban revitalization
 Involving and empowering ethnic business associations
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15. Choice of measures (2011)
 Advice and information services
 Finding a business location
 Access to finance
 Finding customers
 Building local connections and mobilizing transnational
links
 Finding and managing personnel
 Improving skills needed for business
 Targeting doubly disadvantaged groups
 Regulation and deregulation
 Urban revitalization
 Involving and empowering ethnic business associations
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16. Patterns
 A politically sensitive topic (multicultural backlash)
 No ‘natural problem owner’: explicit promotion of
ethnic entrepreneurship is rare
 Measures – if any – were biased toward targeting
ethnic entrepreneurs’ deficiencies rather than
opportunity structure
16

17. What about promoting etnic
entrepreneurship?
 Ethnic entrepreneurship did not play major role in
the overall integration strategy
 For as far as actually promoted, it rarely formed part
of bigger economic agenda
 Mainly offering training and coaching, business
accommodation or soft loans
 Ethnic entrepreneurs unaware of support schemes,
or reluctant to apply for outside support
 At the same time, governmental and civil-society
agencies often found it hard to reach out
17

18. Conclusions
 (Group-specific) interventions thin on the ground
 Over-confidence in ethnic minorities capabilities? >
support unnecessary
 Lack of confidence in ethnic minorities > support is
waste of money??
 Neither demonstrates appreciation of what is actually
happening on the ground
 Missed opportunities?
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19. Thanks
Aytar, V. and J. Rath (2012) Selling Ethnic
Neighborhoods: The Rise of Neighborhoods as
Places of Leisure and Consumption. New York:
Routledge
Kloosterman, R.C. and J. Rath (2003) Immigrant
Entrepreneurs: Venturing Abroad in the Age of
Globalization. Oxford: Berg
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