IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/38405.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financing the Start-up and Operation of Immigrant-owned Businesses: the path taken by African Immigrants in the Cape Town Metropolitan Area of South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Tengeh, Robertson Khan
  • Ballard, Harry
  • Slabbert, Andre

Abstract

Drawing a sample of 135 successful African immigrant-owned businesses, this paper sets out to investigate how their owners acquired the necessary capital for start-up and growth thereafter. The paper was designed within the quantitative and qualitative research paradigms, in which a triangulation of three methods was utilised to collect and analyse the data. The paper revealed that although African immigrants are characteristically at the disadvantage when it comes to accessing capital from formal financial institutions, this does not stop them from pursuing entrepreneurial activities. At the start-up stage, they typically resort to personal savings, business credit, family credit, and loans from informal financial institutions. According to the ability to raise capital, we found that a varying range of start-up capital was utilised, which tended to vary across the different ethnic groups studied. Once started, we found that the sources of additional finance available to these immigrants did not change significantly. They conventionally turned to friends, co-ethnics and self-help financial associations to ‘feed’ their need for further funding.

Suggested Citation

  • Tengeh, Robertson Khan & Ballard, Harry & Slabbert, Andre, 2011. "Financing the Start-up and Operation of Immigrant-owned Businesses: the path taken by African Immigrants in the Cape Town Metropolitan Area of South Africa," MPRA Paper 38405, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 19 Dec 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:38405
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/38405/1/MPRA_paper_38405.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sam Youl Lee & Richard Florida & Zoltan J. Acs, 2008. "Creativity and Entrepreneurship: A Regional Analysis of New Firm Formation," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 13, pages 171-182, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Claessens, Stijn, 2006. "Access to financial services: a review of the issues and public policy objectives," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 17, pages 16-19.
    3. repec:bla:obuest:v:63:y:2001:i:3:p:333-58 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Sonja Markova & Tatjana Petkovska-Mircevska, 2009. "Financing Options for Entrepreneurial Ventures," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 11(26), pages 597-604, June.
    5. Lucio Cassia & Alessandra Colombelli, 2006. "Entrepreneurship As Regional Development Catalyst," ERSA conference papers ersa06p627, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Alicia Robb & Robert Fairlie, 2009. "Determinants of business success: an examination of Asian-owned businesses in the USA," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 827-858, October.
    7. Colombo, Massimo G. & Delmastro, Marco & Grilli, Luca, 2004. "Entrepreneurs' human capital and the start-up size of new technology-based firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1183-1211, November.
    8. Thomas Gries & Wim Naudé, 2008. "Entrepreneurship and Regional Economic Growth: Towards A General Theory of Start-Ups," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-70, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Tengeh, Robertson Khan & Ballard, Harry & Slabbert, Andre, 2011. "A framework for acquiring the resources vital for the start-up of a business in South Africa:an African Immigrant’s Perspective," MPRA Paper 34211, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Elfring, Tom & Hulsink, Willem, 2003. "Networks in Entrepreneurship: The Case of High-Technology Firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 409-422, December.
    11. repec:aer:wpaper:111 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. C. Mirjam van Praag, 2003. "Business Survival and Success of Young Small Business Owners," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-050/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    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. Robertson K. Tengeh & Linus Nkem, 2017. "Sustaining Immigrant Entrepreneurship in South Africa: The Role of Informal Financial Associations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-16, August.
    2. Denys Uwimpuhwe & Greg Ruiters, 2018. "Organising Somalian, Congolese and Rwandan Migrants in a Time of Xenophobia in South Africa: Empirical and Methodological Reflections," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1119-1136, November.

    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. Tengeh, RK & Ballard, HB & Slabbert, AS, 2012. "Do immigrant-owned businesses grow financially? An empirical study of African immigrant-owned businesses in the South Africa," MPRA Paper 40610, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Tengeh, Robertson Khan & Ballard, Harry & Slabbert, Andre, 2011. "A framework for acquiring the resources vital for the start-up of a business in South Africa:an African Immigrant’s Perspective," MPRA Paper 34211, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Robertson K. Tengeh & Linus Nkem, 2017. "Sustaining Immigrant Entrepreneurship in South Africa: The Role of Informal Financial Associations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-16, August.
    4. Nicola Del Sarto & Alberto Di Minin & Giulio Ferrigno & Andrea Piccaluga, 2021. "Born global and well educated: start-up survival through fuzzy set analysis," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1405-1423, April.
    5. Iman Cheratian & Saleh Goltabar & Carla Daniela Calá, 2021. "Spatial drivers of firm entry in Iran," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(2), pages 463-496, April.
    6. Alex Coad & Julian Frankish & Paul Nightingale & Richard Roberts, 2014. "Business experience and start-up size: Buying more lottery tickets next time around?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 529-547, October.
    7. Coad, Alex & Frankish, Julian & Roberts, Richard G. & Storey, David J., 2013. "Growth paths and survival chances: An application of Gambler's Ruin theory," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 615-632.
    8. Enrico Santarelli & Marco Vivarelli, 2007. "Entrepreneurship and the process of firms’ entry, survival and growth," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 16(3), pages 455-488, June.
    9. Isachenkova, N. & Weeks, M., 2008. "Acquisition, Insolvency and Managers in UK Small Companies," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0838, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    10. Andrzej P. Dabkowski, 2011. "Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth: An Investigation into the Relationship between Entrepreneurship and Total Factor Productivity Growth in the EU," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 427, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    11. Jianmu Ye & KMMCB Kulathunga, 2019. "How Does Financial Literacy Promote Sustainability in SMEs? A Developing Country Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-21, May.
    12. Tobias Ebert & Thomas Brenner & Udo Brixy, 2019. "New firm survival: the interdependence between regional externalities and innovativeness," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 287-309, June.
    13. Sahar Ayadi & Sonia Zouari Ghorbel, 2018. "Relevance of the Mann Whitney Wilcoxon test in the survival analysis of newly established companies in Tunisia (Case of the sfax region)," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 8(1), pages 1-20, December.
    14. Verheul, I. & van Stel, A.J., 2007. "Entrepreneurial Diversity and Economic Growth," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-070-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    15. Kent Eliasson & Hans Westlund, 2013. "Attributes influencing self-employment propensity in urban and rural Sweden," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 50(2), pages 479-514, April.
    16. Haifeng Qian & Zoltán J. Ács & Roger R. Stough, 2015. "Regional systems of entrepreneurship: the nexus of human capital, knowledge and new firm formation," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 14, pages 257-285, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Del Sarto, Nicola & Isabelle, Diane A. & Di Minin, Alberto, 2020. "The role of accelerators in firm survival: An fsQCA analysis of Italian startups," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 90.
    18. Aidis, Ruta & van Praag, Mirjam, 2007. "Illegal entrepreneurship experience: Does it make a difference for business performance and motivation?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 283-310, March.
    19. Erik Stam & Roy Thurik & Peter van der Zwan, 2010. "Entrepreneurial exit in real and imagined markets," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(4), pages 1109-1139, August.
    20. Dimelis, Sophia & Giotopoulos, Ioannis & Louri, Helen, 2015. "Can firms grow without credit?: evidence from the Euro Area, 2005-2011: a quantile panel analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 61157, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    business start-up; immigrant-owned businesses; African immigrants; finance; capital; and South Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M1 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration
    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:pra:mprapa:38405. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.