Ethnic Entrepreneurship: A Necessary Realignment
Over the past few decades, there has been an increased interest in the concept of ethnic economy and entrepreneurship in the field of sociology. This interest is grounded in a general quer y regarding why some groups within a national population are acknowledged to be more fierce and successful entrepreneurs than others.
It is incidentally the desire within sociology to understand the determinants of why some people go into entrepreneurship, and the predictive factors of success. This desire explains, to some extent, the general speculation over the entrepreneurial talents of Armenian, Jewish, and Syrian-Lebanese diasporas, the igbo and Yoruba of Nigeria or the Bamileke of cameroon. The speculation is alternatively an attempt to understand the habitus of those sociocultural groups. The very same groups are also widely discussed in ethnic entrepreneurship scholarship.Ethnic entrepreneurship is a concept referring to a set of connections and regular patterns of interaction among people sharing common national (ethnic) backgrounds. The mainstream literature addresses it also as the process by which ethnic minorities create their own private economic sector as a response to exclusion from the formal system. Ethnic entrepreneurs are those who belong to minorities and who rely on the support and resources of their community for their business activities (Light 1972; Aldrich and Waldinger 1990; Light and Sabagh 1994; Light and Gold 2000). Consequently, ethnicity appears to be a form of social capital grounded in ethnic values such as solidarity and enforceable trust, both of which govern economic activities and give entrepreneurs and enterprises access to human and financial capital (portes and Rumbaut 1996; Portes and Landolt 2000; Light 2010).
Belonging to certain ethnic networks can provide access to the market and thus to opportunities, as well as the means to exploit them.
This may include information concerning consumers, suppliers, competitors, access to security, commercial networks and financial resources such as traditional saving channels (Lautier 2004; Servet 2006). However, the word “ethnic” has come to be framed as a generic word referring to foreign, non-Caucasian minorities and immigrant groups owning shops and businesses in North America or Europe, where most of the research regarding ethnic entrepreneurship is produced (Urban 2011). Mainstream ethnic entrepreneurship scholarship has framed ethnic entrepreneurship as a form of strategy used by newly arrived migrants' during their quest for socio-economic mobility and integration into their host country. This is a good example of a possible strategy and mobilization of means, but not fully sufficient. in fact, very few studies have explored the economic habitus of those groups or the strategies developed by ethnic entrepreneurs in a purely market context.The Kirznerian-ethnic-entrepreneur model reveals its relevance here. It sets a new direction by focusing practically on the economic habitus of ethnic groups and new geographies in order to make more sense of culture and context. In no other place of the world is the ethnic dimension of entrepreneurship as visible and challenging as in developing nations, especially African nations, which, despite immense potential provided by natural and human resources and opportunities, fail to drive major economic growth (Lofchie 1994; Coyne and Leeson 2004). Indeed, where many voices even within academia would see an absence of market institution and entrepreneurship, the Kirznerian- ethnic-entrepreneur model, as a research programme, deconstructs certain narratives that would try to resolve the issue by “bringing” either market or entrepreneurship to those places. The Kirznerian- ethnic-entrepreneur model is an approach that seeks to understand the cultural processes at work in those countries in order to tap into their potential (Lavoie and Chamlee-Wright 2000). An understanding of the cultural processes at work in those countries can be found by assessing how compatible are the different economic habitus with local fields, and how different ethnic groups in those countries conceptualize entrepreneurship. Furthermore, this approach is concerned with how the habitus helps individuals cope with market uncertainties. The Kirznerian- ethnic-entrepreneur model is an analytical model best used in exploring entrepreneurship in specific African nations. It will also improve our scientific understanding and interpretation of entrepreneurial processes according to local realities and their impact on economic processes.