Transnational entrepreneurs and global knowledge transfer

This chapter discusses how transnational entrepreneurs contribute to the global transfer of knowledge and initiate regional development processes. Transnational entrepreneurs are conceptualized as one type of diaspora entrepreneur who, unlike other types of entrepreneurs, set up highly competitive firms that rely in their day-to-day business on dense linkages between two or more locations. Being part of families or closed ethnic communities, these entrepreneurs are capable of developing trust-based networks that allow for fast and low-cost knowledge exchanges and knowledge generation processes at a worldwide scale. This generates important competitive advantages compared to firms that do not have such linkages. By presenting case studies of self-employed migrants in high-technology industries (so-called New Argonauts) and in the diamond sector, this chapter demonstrates that transnational entrepreneurs are an important phenomenon in different countries and industries with varying knowledge intensities, and can be analyzed at different scales.