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I am an assistant researcher in Innovation Sciences with a focus on Innovation Management at Halmstad University and currently working with interdisciplinary research projects addressing sustainable business model innovation. The main focus of my research is to design and implement programs to help immigrants/refugees with skills to integrate them into agricultural and food business as employees or as entrepreneurs. I am an agriculture engineer and I hold a master’s degree in horticulture sciences from Damascus University. My visions of research are related to the development of a doctoral thesis in a topic that can connect the knowledge I have from my previous experience in Syria and combine it with new insightful experiences from Sweden. The use of research and innovation as tools to address companies’ practical problems and co-create alternatives for solution is something that attracts me. Building a big network and contacting with researchers and entrepreneurs from different countries and background is my passion because that inspires me and makes me think more about better opportunities and ideas. I would like to participate in scenarios that promote the analysis and reflection processes that make it possible to support the collective construction of knowledge. Please feel free to contact me. I can be contacted directly at [email protected]
Immigrant entrepreneurs face many challenges in the various early phases of their companies’ existence. These challenges are often referred to as “the liability of newness”. While some of these challenges are common to all entrepreneurs, the immigrant entrepreneur has an additional set of challenges. This article describes those challenges in the immigrant entrepreneurial experience in the Swedish agri-food industry. A qualitative research design is used. Interviews were conducted with 25 immigrant entrepreneurs who planned a business, had started a business, or had exited a business. Various websites and tax reports provided secondary data. The research, which covered a two-year time frame, identifies the strategies and actions the immigrant entrepreneurs adopted and used to try to overcome those challenges. The following strategies and actions were identified: use of business support, virtual embeddedness, family and ethnic groups, entrepreneurial experience, and niche markets. The companies in which the entrepreneurs recognized the gravity of those challenges early in their life cycle were more likely to survive beyond the start-up phase. The article, which also reviews much of the current literature on immigrant entrepreneurship, has implications for business support advisory services and policymakers who are involved in the effort to achieve economic (and social-cultural) integration of immigrants into their host countries.
Henrik Barth; Ghazal Zalkat. Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Sweden: The Liability of Newness. Sustainability 2020, 12, 6478 .
AMA StyleHenrik Barth, Ghazal Zalkat. Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Sweden: The Liability of Newness. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (16):6478.
Chicago/Turabian StyleHenrik Barth; Ghazal Zalkat. 2020. "Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Sweden: The Liability of Newness." Sustainability 12, no. 16: 6478.