Migrant Entrepreneurship In The 19th And 21st Century

BUSM1311 The Entrepreneurial Process

Similarities and Differences in Migrant Entrepreneurs in both the 19th and 21st Century

Discuss about the Migrant Entrepreneurship in the 19th And 21st Century.

Immigration has been and remains to be a concern in countries like the United States. Increased number of immigrants in the UK or the US  have negative implication in that they are able to drain the economy of the country (Rath et al. 2016). Many people, who have not researched on the economic implications of migrants, bring up the facts of migrants draining the country economically. When well researched, findings show that the highest percentage of United States’ economy relies on the entrepreneurial activities of the migrants; this is contrary to the majority’s opinion (Crush & Ramachandran 2016).

As defined by Isla and Rialp (2013), migrant entrepreneurs are foreign-born individuals who get their way into a foreign land with an entrepreneurial mindset, establishing and owning businesses within the foreign land. They are creative enough to come up with unique business ideas, which stand out leading, to the expansion of the economic activities. The establishment of these businesses the economy of the host country is boosted. Migrant entrepreneurs make new products and services available to the host country, (Nathan 2014). Most migrants have one characteristic in common, the entrepreneurial characteristics supported by the cross-cultural experiences.  Migrants come from different cultures, and once they get into a new culture, they are able to introduce or fill the available business gaps. The gaps filled by the entrepreneurial migrant are unique and rarely can the host fill them, (Vandor & Franke 2016). 

In many years, migrant entrepreneurship has been changing. There is a great difference in the entrepreneurship of 19^th century and that of the 21^st century.  This paper analyses various differences and similarities in the migrant entrepreneurs in both the centuries. It also gives the challenges faced by both entrepreneurs represented in the different centuries and how they addressed their challenges.

Migrant entrepreneurs are known historically for their continuous and well-established social and economic innovations. These entrepreneurs are able to identify a particular business gap and fill it. In both the 19^th and 21^st century, these entrepreneurs had a goal and vision that they want to achieve. In both cases, the entrepreneurs had business ideas to be materialized. For instance, entrepreneurs in the 19^th century were able to follow their dreams of wealth, success and personal fulfillment; this is also evident in the  21^st-century entrepreneurs.  The 19^th-century entrepreneurs were able to create a goal and work tirelessly taking risks, managing costs and ensuring that they give back to the community. In the 21^st century, we see the same happening. Entrepreneurs are risk-takers and they work passionately and tirelessly to achieve the set goals, (Busse 2011).

Challenges faced by Migrant Entrepreneurs

Comparing the historical experiences of both the migrant entrepreneurs in both centuries, one factor stands out clearly. Most of the migrants move out of their country to host country to exploit the available resources that are not in their original land. For instance, the most successful businessmen in the 19^th century who were migrants moved out of their country due to economic constraints. They moved to America, which was economically ahead of their country to exploit the available resources. Migrant entrepreneurs in both the century have a cultural difference with their host countries. The cultural difference existing between the migrants and the host country provides the business ideas for the migrants. (Bhachu, 2017). For example, the richest man and a successful German- American entrepreneur in the 19^th century, Claus Spreckels, moved out of Germany to America and he identified many business gaps that were unfilled, due to cultural differences. This enabled him to run top in the establishments. In the 21^st century, entrepreneurs are also being driven by similar experiences. The desire to exploit once the comfort zone becomes unbearable. Due to the excessive competitions within motherlands, most people opt to have their business established in other countries.

In order to be successful, family and ethnic networks are important in making one economically stable in the host country. Most of the entrepreneurs entered the host country using family connections and were helped to build a good foundation. The ethnic solidarity in the form of loans, cooperation, advice, information and extended families are seen to be very important for success in the host country (Brettell & Hollifield 2014). Without these, one would have to undergo a lot of struggle to achieve the same. Currently, it also takes family connections to enter the United States legally for permanent residence and to get the prerequisites such as ID for performing business activities (Brettell & Hollifield 2014). . This makes it difficult for migrant entrepreneurs who make their way in the host country with no one of the same ethnic background or family around to help them. Migrant entrepreneurs of the 21^st century are able to get good reception in the host country due to the revised immigration policies. Opportunities for jobs are equally given to migrants as to the host citizens (Brettell & Hollifield 2014). This has made it possible for entrepreneurs to develop and establish in different host countries.  

The entrepreneur in both the 19^th and 21^st Centuries possessed similar values such as strong personality traits; they were determined, ambitious, focused to success, risk takers, good managers of cash and ready to deliver to the community (Khan 2015). Innovation being the center of entrepreneurship has more relevance now than in the 19^th century. Back then, entrepreneurs such as Claus majored on bridging social challenges such as poor communication, poor transport, processing of foods as value addition, inventing better tools and farming techniques among others. The 21^st century entrepreneur has to have deeper understanding of technology, use technology in driving business processes and cut costs (Boyles 2012). Entrepreneurs have to learn the market, understand the challenges of the 21^st century customer and use these challenges to create a business idea (Boyles 2012). Innovation between migrant entrepreneurs in the 21^st and 19^th century are quite different.

Importance of Family and Ethnic Networks for Migrant Entrepreneurs

The major differences that exist between the migrant entrepreneurs in the 19^th century and those in the 21^st century are the already developed transport systems and technology in this century. Initially, the entrepreneurs had difficulties in the transportation of various goods from one country to another due to poor infrastructure. The only available means was shipping that was expensive and time-consuming. Today, many entrepreneurs are enjoying the well-developed infrastructures. Technology advancement that was laid by initial investors made it easy for 21^st-century entrepreneurs. In the 19^th century, the technology was poor creating a tedious time for the entrepreneurs (Khan 2015).

The migrant entrepreneurs both in the 19^th century and 21^st century had unique challenges to deal with. Some of the challenges experienced in the 19^th century and the 21^st century are similar with others being totally different. In the 19^th century, there was a challenge of an inadequate transport system. Entrepreneurs had difficult times in transporting raw materials from one country to another since the transport system was poor. They incurred a lot of expenses on the entrepreneur minimizing the profit margin (Boyd 2017). Development of infrastructure thereafter helped to ease the cost of transportation. Entrepreneurs like Claus Spreckels identified this business idea and developed the improved shipping systems that are important for the transportation of goods and materials.

Poor networking systems in the 19^th century were an additional challenge to poor transport. There was no internet and the internet applications that would help to ease the work of data collection, data storage, and analysis. Entrepreneurs were forced to handle this manually, which became a challenge to innovations (Keenan 2017). In the present times, entrepreneurs have the advantage of using the internet for networking, advertising their businesses, interacting with customers and even selling their products online (Schneider & Aguiar 2016). There is internet where everyone is able to access and do more research on the business idea.

In the 19^th century, most of the migrant entrepreneurs had to support themselves financially. There were no financial firms that were willing and ready to offer loans except to the well-established entrepreneurs like Claus Speckles. This made it difficult for most entrepreneurs to access finance (Haltiwanger et al. 2016).  The 21^st century is full of opportunities where entrepreneurs can get capital to start and sustain their startups. Venture capitalists and angel investors are now more common. Apart from choosing to finance a viable startup to a tune of almost $1,000,000 for a stake in one’s company, they offer advice and mentorship to modern day entrepreneurs until their ventures are stable (Wong, Bhatia & Freeman 2009).  The huge number of financial institutions makes it easier to finance a startup in this dispensation. Entrepreneurs though find it difficult accessing loans from banks and other financial institutions when they do not have the favorable credit history to access big loans (Jones et al. 2014).

The Role of Innovation in Migrant Entrepreneurship

In this paper, the data used are secondary data that was obtained from two articles. One of the articles represents a migrant entrepreneur in the 19^th century with the other representing a migrant entrepreneur in the 21^st century. ‘Claus Spreckels: A Biographical Case Study of Nineteenth-Century “American Immigrant Entrepreneurship” is the article used in understanding the migrant entrepreneurial in the 19^th century. For the 21^st century, a case study with the name the Empire of giggle. These two articles were used to study the differences and similarities between the two characters in mind. Generally, the two helped us draw a conclusion on the topic under study. Generally, the two helped us draw a conclusion on the topic under study.

From the study of the two articles, various factors are seen to be similar in both the 19^th and the 21^st century. From both studies we get to understand that there was a particular reason behind their emigration, self-motivation and determination have been seen to be driving the two, cultural differences was the center for their businesses ideas. Family and ethical networking are also shown to be essential for the success of the enterprise. There were many areas of considering that were studied to help understand the similarities and differences in the two case studies. The following are some of the factors considered:

Intellectual property, innovation, and knowledge are important as far as completion is concerned. Intellectual property will help most of the entrepreneurs to be ahead of their competitors. They are able to protect their businesses and give room for more developments. Competitors cannot import or export the products without your knowledge. It also helps one secure loans and credit cards from, financial institutions (Hovenkamp & Carrier 2016). Combined with innovation and knowledge, entrepreneurs are able to be innovative enough to capture the available market. They have to think beyond the nose to ensure customer satisfaction. For this to happen, then full knowledge and understanding of the market, financial abilities, competitor knowledge is necessary (Block et al. 2013). The use of these factors is seen in the case study of Claus Speckles where he is always alert on his competitor’s never giving them room to defeat him. He goes further to spend time getting knowledge on one of his business ideas making the idea and the actual results blossom.

Ethnicity, culture, network and seed capital have been shown in the two scenarios. Ethnicity network is important in that it gives one advantage over an opportunity that one who has no ethnic relations around (Hogberg et al. 2016). The culture of an individual will also determine the kind of business ideas generated. Individuals from less disadvantageous countries may think shallowly as compared to their fellows from a well-established country. Full understanding of culture can help one identify business idea. Proper networking is important, both family networks, and the communication networks as it helps in giving stability to an idea making it stand (Ryan et al. 2015). This is evident when Claus gets to States and through ethnic relations secures a job and finally, through family networks buys his first business of retail and wholesale products.

Impact of Technology and Transport Systems on Migrant Entrepreneurship

For any successful business, it has to identify its market and the market niche. Identifying the market for the product is not enough, but one has to draw the market niche. This involves the identification of a specific need that is required by consumers and satisfying their need (Ward 2016). It identifies a product or a service that is not being addressed by other providers. From the two cases, we see every person trying to get a unique product from the rest of competitors. Claus kept on changing from one product to another just to remain unique in the service provision. The Max family is also tried to narrow down it’s business ideas so that it targets a particular market.

Businesses established in different countries have the set legal and regulatory categories that help it to run. These legal and regulatory categories include environmental laws, tax laws, contract laws, license permitting laws and consumer protection laws. These laws have to be adhered to strictly by any business in order to establish. Failure to adhere to this may be a starting point for the closure of the business (Bradley & Klein 2016). From the study cases, we see Claus being able to pay tax under the requirement tax law of the United States; he established good consumer protection law, where he could regulate prices to favor his consumers. This factor has been seen to help him be above the competitors.

Entrepreneurship is an entity in which there must exist a competition. Allowing a competitor to gain a competitive advantage over one’s business is a step towards failure (McDonald & Eisenhardt 2014). One should take every competition positively and use position strategy to gain competitive advantage. Claus, from the case study, left his competitors aping his projects and products, while continually innovating, which made him stay ahead of them constantly.

With increased competition in the field of entrepreneurship, an entrepreneur has to be sensitive to changes in the business environment in order to ensure maximum productivity (Lechner & Gudmundsson 2014). There should always be a need for control. Entrepreneurship as a field has many of its advantages. There is always one other side of entrepreneurship that is not often mentioned; this is the dark side of entrepreneurship. The dark side entails those attributes that an entrepreneur has to possess for success. Among them we have a need for control, sense of distrust to the surrounding people, always avoid negative mindsets, be always patient and persistent and should have personal inspirations. From Claus articles, we are able to see how Claus Spreckels has some of these attributes of the dark side of entrepreneurship. He was self-motivated in everything he did, had control had time for family and time for work, he never trusted people around, he only trusted in himself. The Max’s family are seen to be self-motivated and inspired, and expectant of success despite challenges. They were able to leave their country and family home, just come and exploit the unknown land. They were able to leave their comfort zone for the sake of their business ideas.

In any foreign country, an entrepreneur has to adhere to government regulations and requirements (Gibson 2016). This will help in ensuring the atmosphere for the business is conducive. Political lobbying is inevitable in host country if one has to be successful (Pinkse & Groot 2015). For example, Claus Speckle was able to establish his company in Hawaii and American West due to his good rapport towards the political leaders. It is important that one establish strong ethical values like loyalty, hard work, self-motivation which will drive them to their success (Ghoul 2016). Ethical values possessed by both Claus and Max’s family were the reason for their success.

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship among migrants has been present from the 19^th century up to the present times. Migrant entrepreneurs found ways to be innovative, self-motivated, determined and take risks in the new countries in order to be successful. The 19^th and 21^st-century migrant entrepreneurs have certain similarities and differences in their situations, purpose, and method of success. Both phased the challenge of acceptance, difficulty in doing business in the host country and difficulty in accessing capital from financial institutions and individuals in the host country. The 19^th-century migrants’ entrepreneurs had to deal with the challenges of poor transport, lack of capital and inadequate communication facilities to make business easier. On the flipside, the 21^st century has unique challenges in terms of the high degree of innovation and analytics skills required to win over the market. The 21^st century entrepreneur is more advantageous as technology and the internet provide more opportunity for innovation, makes reaching customers easier, and allows for easy access to data that provide information regarding customer behaviours and wants. Many countries have placed a cap on migrant numbers, but recent studies have shown that host countries actually benefit from them as much. Although this group faces several challenges, determination is always the driving force, which makes them more successful than many citizens of the host countries.

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