Characteristics of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Their Involvement in International New Ventures

Summary of Results Immigrant entrepreneurs are often portrayed as being pushed into necessity-based entrepreneurship due to limited employment prospects. We questioned whether IEs may in fact use their international human capital to exploit international opportunities and develop INVs. Our results indicate that a significantly higher percentage of IEs in our sample started INVs than would be expected by their numbers in the population. IEs were also over-represented in the possession of some of the character-istics associated with INVs, including having a university education, depth of international experience, develop-ing face-to-face international connections, and greater technical capability. Other INV characteristics that were marginally significant included starting with a greater number of founders, entrepreneurial experience, and industry experience. INV characteristics that were not significant were developing technology-mediated inter-national connections and number of businesses currently owned, which reflected entrepreneurial experience. These results flagged a clear pattern supporting the role of IEs in INVs.