Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs

• Main Authors: ZHANG, Tenghao, SEET, Pi-Shen, REDMOND, Janice, SHARAFIZAD, Jalleh, TAN, Wee Liang
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Middleman minority; Immigrant entrepreneurship; Chinese Immigrants; Global innovators; Transnational traders; Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations; Strategic Management Policy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7464
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs were historically portrayed as a common prototypical example of middleman minorities, as they usually operate in the trading and commerce sector within a localised ethnic enclave in host countries. Framed within the context of the contemporary era, this study evaluated new immigrant entrepreneurs from mainland China in the Asia-Pacific region against the portrait of classic middleman minorities as their predecessors. Based on a typology model measured by ‘trader-innovator’ and ‘local-global’ dimensions, this study conducted a review of recent literature and supplemented with observations from the authors’ field studies. The results suggest that while most of the Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs today can still fall under the ambit of middleman minorities, three emerging types are identified and illustrated with cases, which are: neo-middleman minorities, transnational traders and global innovators.