immigrant entrepreneurship , nascent entrepreneurship , entrepreneurial strategies , diary research , liminality , social practice theory
Abstract:
The dominant retrospective scientific approaches on (self-)selected entrepreneurs that succeeded after the start-up phase does not cover the dynamism of the start-up process and critical practices of immigrant entrepreneurship. With the diary or logbook research method, we have regularly accompanied seven cases of immigrant entrepreneurial journeys during six months. In this phenomenological study of solicited online founders’ diaries/logs, we co-produced data together with the participants and combined them with other elements of ethnographic methods such as in-depth interviews and observation of interactions of these entrepreneurs and relevant stakeholders in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. The guided self-reflection of the start-up process is an efficient research access for investigating time-constrained immigrant entrepreneurs creating semi-standardized procedural data on immigrant start-up typologies of high ecological validity that are otherwise hard to observe. We contribute to theory by outlining different entrepreneurial paths contingent on the social practices that affect embeddedness and socio-economic inclusion. Besides, our study generates methodological insights about closely covering the immigrant entrepreneurial journey and learnings for diary research in minority entrepreneurship.
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