IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i18p7658-d414522.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Center to Periphery and Back Again: A Systematic Literature Review of Refugee Entrepreneurship

Author

Listed:
  • Sibylle Heilbrunn

    (School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Emek Hayarden, Zemach M. P. 15132, Israel)

  • Rosa Lisa Iannone

    (Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, University of Luxembourg, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg)

Abstract

This paper presents a qualitative, systematic literature review of refugee entrepreneurship research that has been published in academic outlets, up to 2018. We synthesize the contributions to the field, providing a state of the art, so as to elucidate our current understandings of the phenomenon and highlight gaps that will help enhance our future approaches and knowledge. The empirical analysis reveals a fast emerging, eclectic field, with research from a wide range of disciplines, produced by the ‘academic center’, largely in the ‘academic periphery’. Publication numbers have been on the rise, especially in the last ten years, yet, there is very little mutual acknowledgement and discussions arising between researchers, as revealed by a bibliometric analysis. A content analysis shows three main waves of publications based on countries of origin, countries of residence, and migration timeframes. The vast majority of publications take on an exploratory approach to research, with diverse theoretical framings from an array of disciplines, and the thematic clusters reveal how researchers are attempting to tease out the distinctiveness of refugee entrepreneurs from other, closely related entrepreneurship groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Sibylle Heilbrunn & Rosa Lisa Iannone, 2020. "From Center to Periphery and Back Again: A Systematic Literature Review of Refugee Entrepreneurship," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-39, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7658-:d:414522
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7658/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7658/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. d'Artis Kancs & Patrizio Lecca, 2018. "Long‐term social, economic and fiscal effects of immigration into the EU: The role of the integration policy," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(10), pages 2599-2630, October.
    2. Bird, Miriam & Wennberg, Karl, 2016. "Why family matters: The impact of family resources on immigrant entrepreneurs' exit from entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 687-704.
    3. Nikita Baklanov & Shahamak Rezaei & Jan Vang & Léo-Paul Dana, 2014. "Migrant entrepreneurship, economic activity and export performance: mapping the Danish trends," Post-Print hal-02014862, HAL.
    4. Daphne Halkias & Chinedum Nwajiuba & Nicholas Harkiolakis & Garry Clayton & Patrick Dimitris Akrivos & Sylva Caracatsanis, 2009. "Characteristics and business profiles of immigrant-owned small firms: the case of African immigrant entrepreneurs in Greece," International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(4), pages 382-401.
    5. Barak-Bianco, Anda & Raijman, Rebeca, 2015. "Asylum seeker entrepreneurs in Israel," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 16(2), pages 4-13.
    6. Léo-Paul Dana, 2012. "Learning from Lagnado about self-employment and entrepreneurship in Egypt," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 17(1), pages 140-153.
    7. Ratan J. S. Dheer, 2018. "Entrepreneurship by immigrants: a review of existing literature and directions for future research," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 555-614, September.
    8. Jones, Marian V. & Coviello, Nicole & Tang, Yee Kwan, 2011. "International Entrepreneurship research (1989–2009): A domain ontology and thematic analysis," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 632-659.
    9. Karen Verduyn & Pascal Dey & Deirdre Tedmanson, 2017. "A critical understanding of entrepreneurship," Revue de l'Entrepreneuriat, De Boeck Université, vol. 16(1), pages 37-45.
    10. Thurik, A. Roy & Carree, Martin A. & van Stel, André & Audretsch, David B., 2008. "Does self-employment reduce unemployment?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 673-686, November.
    11. Steven J. Gold, 1992. "The Employment Potential of Refugee Entrepreneurship: Soviet Jews and Vietnamese in California," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 11(2), pages 176-186, June.
    12. Johanna Mair & Ignasi Marti & Marc Ventresca, 2012. "Building Inclusive Markets in Rural Bangladesh : How Intermediaries Work Institutional Voids," Post-Print hal-02276707, HAL.
    13. Ademar Schmitz & David Urbano & Gertrudes Aparecida Dandolini & João Artur Souza & Maribel Guerrero, 2017. "Innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic setting: a systematic literature review," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 369-395, June.
    14. Vanna Gonzales & Nigel Forrest & Noreen Balos, 2013. "Refugee farmers and the social enterprise model in the American southwest," Journal of Community Positive Practices, Catalactica NGO, issue 4, pages 32-54.
    15. Nikita Baklanov & Shahamak Rezaei & Jan Vang & Léo-Paul Dana, 2014. "Migrant entrepreneurship, economic activity and export performance: mapping the Danish trends," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 23(1/2), pages 63-93.
    16. Daniel Hiebert, 2002. "The spatial limits to entrepreneurship: Immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 93(2), pages 173-190, May.
    17. María Villares-Varela & Caroline Essers, 2019. "Women in the migrant economy. A positional approach to contextualize gendered transnational trajectories," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3-4), pages 213-225, March.
    18. Sibylle Heilbrunn & Rosa Lisa Iannone, 2019. "Neoliberalist Undercurrents in Entrepreneurship Policy," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 5(2), pages 149-162, July.
    19. Ted baker & howard E. aldrich & liou nina, 1997. "Invisible entrepreneurs:the neglect of women business owners by mass media and scholarly journals in the USA," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 221-238, January.
    20. Sascha Kraus & Janina Burtscher & Christine Vallaster & Martin Angerer, 2018. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship Orientation: A Reflection on Status-Quo Research on Factors Facilitating Responsible Managerial Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-21, February.
    21. Johanna Mair & Ignasi Marti & Marc Ventresca, 2012. "Building Inclusive Markets in Rural Bangladesh : How Intermediaries Work Institutional Voids," Post-Print hal-02312706, HAL.
    22. Leandro Sepulveda & Stephen Syrett & Fergus Lyon, 2011. "Population superdiversity and new migrant enterprise: The case of London," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(7-8), pages 469-497, September.
    23. Rima M. Bizri, 2017. "Refugee-entrepreneurship: a social capital perspective," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(9-10), pages 847-868, October.
    24. Sascha Kraus & Matthias Breier & Sonia Dasí-Rodríguez, 2020. "The art of crafting a systematic literature review in entrepreneurship research," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 1023-1042, September.
    25. Riddle, Liesl & Brinkerhoff, Jennifer, 2011. "Diaspora entrepreneurs as institutional change agents: The case of Thamel.com," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 670-680.
    26. Bujaki, Merridee L. & Gaudet, Stéphanie & Iuliano, Rosa M., 2017. "Governmentality and identity construction through 50 years of personal income tax returns: The case of an immigrant couple in Canada," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 54-74.
    27. David H. Kaplan, 1997. "The Creation of an Ethnic Economy: Indochinese Business Expansion in Saint Paul," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(2), pages 214-233, April.
    28. Massimo Bordignon & Simone Moriconi, 2017. "The case for a common European refugee policy," Policy Contributions 19605, Bruegel.
    29. Alicia Robb & Alexandria Valerio & Brent Parton, 2014. "Entrepreneurship Education and Training : Insights from Ghana, Kenya, and Mozambique," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 18776.
    30. Donald T. Hawkins, 1977. "Unconventional uses of on‐line information retrieval systems: On‐line bibliometric studies," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 28(1), pages 13-18, January.
    31. Friederike Welter, 2011. "Contextualizing Entrepreneurship—Conceptual Challenges and Ways Forward," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 35(1), pages 165-184, January.
    32. Mathilde Aubry & Jean Bonnet & Patricia Renou-Maissant, 2015. "Entrepreneurship and the business cycle: the “Schumpeter” effect versus the “refugee” effect—a French appraisal based on regional data," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(1), pages 23-55, January.
    33. Rocío Aliaga-Isla (PhD) & Alex Rialp (PhD), 2013. "Systematic review of immigrant entrepreneurship literature: previous findings and ways forward," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(9-10), pages 819-844, December.
    34. Monder Ram & Nicholas Theodorakopoulos & Trevor Jones, 2008. "Forms of capital, mixed embeddedness and Somali enterprise," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 22(3), pages 427-446, September.
    35. Trevor Jones & Monder Ram & Paul Edwards & Alex Kiselinchev & Lovemore Muchenje, 2014. "Mixed embeddedness and new migrant enterprise in the UK," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(5-6), pages 500-520, August.
    36. Mair, Johanna & Marti, Ignasi, 2009. "Entrepreneurship in and around institutional voids: A case study from Bangladesh," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 419-435, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nina Lazarczyk-Bilal & Beata Glinka, 2020. "What Determines the Entrepreneurial Intentions of Highly-Skilled Women with Refugee Experience? An Empirical Analysis in the Context of Sweden," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Ghazal Zalkat & Henrik Barth & Lubna Rashid, 2024. "Refugee entrepreneurship motivations in Sweden and Germany: a comparative case study," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 477-499, June.
    3. Hartmann Carina & Philipp Ralf, 2022. "Lost in space? Refugee Entrepreneurship and Cultural Diversity in Spatial Contexts," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 66(3), pages 151-171, October.
    4. Ugur Yetkin & Deniz Tunçalp, 2024. "Refugee Entrepreneurship: Resolving Multi-contextuality and Differential Exclusion," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 194(4), pages 887-913, November.
    5. Solomon Akele Abebe, 2023. "Refugee entrepreneurship: systematic and thematic analyses and a research agenda," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 315-350, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Solomon Akele Abebe, 2023. "Refugee entrepreneurship: systematic and thematic analyses and a research agenda," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 315-350, January.
    2. Elo, Maria & Täube, Florian A. & Servais, Per, 2022. "Who is doing “transnational diaspora entrepreneurship”? Understanding formal identity and status," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(1).
    3. Dabić, Marina & Vlačić, Bozidar & Paul, Justin & Dana, Leo-Paul & Sahasranamam, Sreevas & Glinka, Beata, 2020. "Immigrant entrepreneurship: A review and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 25-38.
    4. Lisa Jones Christensen & Arielle Badger Newman & Heidi Herrick & Paul Godfrey, 2020. "Separate but not equal: Toward a nomological net for migrants and migrant entrepreneurship," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(1), pages 1-22, March.
    5. Aki Harima & Fabrice Periac & Tony Murphy & Salomé Picard, 2021. "Entrepreneurial Opportunities of Refugees in Germany, France, and Ireland: Multiple Embeddedness Framework," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 625-663, June.
    6. David Urbano & Sebastian Aparicio & David Audretsch, 2019. "Twenty-five years of research on institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic growth: what has been learned?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 21-49, June.
    7. Eduardo Picanço Cruz & Roberto Pessoa QueirozFalcão & Rafael Cuba Mancebo, 2020. "Market orientation and strategic decisions on immigrant and ethnic small firms," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 227-255, June.
    8. Juan M. Gil-Barragan & María José López-Sánchez, 2021. "The Fast Lane of Internationalization of Latin American SMEs: A Location-Based Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-20, March.
    9. Castellanza, Luca, 2022. "Discipline, abjection, and poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship: A constitutive perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(1).
    10. Schlepphorst, Susanne & Kay, Rosemarie & Nielen, Sebastian, 2019. "The effect of migrants' resource endowments on business performance," Working Papers 03/19, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.
    11. Franczak, Jennifer & Lanivich, Stephen E. & Adomako, Samuel, 2023. "Filling institutional voids: Combinative effects of institutional shortcomings and gender on the alertness – Opportunity recognition relationship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PB).
    12. Carlos Alberto Santamaria-Velasco & Maria del Mar Benavides-Espinosa & Virginia Simón-Moya, 2021. "The refugee entrepreneurship process from/in emerging economies," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 549-570, June.
    13. Aki Harima & Thomas Baron, 2020. "Is this Transnational Entrepreneurship? Five Cases in Which It Is Hard to Say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 6(1), pages 12-40, January.
    14. Bryan Malki & Timur Uman & Daniel Pittino, 2022. "The entrepreneurial financing of the immigrant entrepreneurs: a literature review," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1337-1365, March.
    15. Shayegheh Ashourizadeh & Jizhen Li & Kent Adsbøll Wickstrøm, 2022. "Immigrants` Entrepreneurial Networks and Export: A Comparative Study," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 1291-1318, September.
    16. Sandoz Laure & Mittmasser Christina & Riaño Yvonne & Piguet Etienne, 2022. "A Review of Transnational Migrant Entrepreneurship: Perspectives on Unequal Spatialities," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 66(3), pages 137-150, October.
    17. Shayegheh Ashourizadeh & Jizhen Li & Kent Adsbøll Wickstrøm, 0. "Immigrants` Entrepreneurial Networks and Export: A Comparative Study," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-28.
    18. Rana, Mohammad B. & Elo, Maria, 2017. "Transnational Diaspora and Civil Society Actors Driving MNE Internationalisation: The Case of Grameenphone in Bangladesh," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 87-106.
    19. Nyame-Asiamah, Frank & Amoako, Isaac Oduro & Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph & Debrah, Yaw A., 2020. "Diaspora entrepreneurs’ push and pull institutional factors for investing in Africa: Insights from African returnees from the United Kingdom," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    20. Dorado, Silvia & Ventresca, Marc J., 2013. "Crescive entrepreneurship in complex social problems: Institutional conditions for entrepreneurial engagement," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 69-82.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7658-:d:414522. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.