Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
streams. Half the sample reported the gross revenue of their business the
year terms and conditions were lifted; the median figure was only $180,000,
while net revenues were of course much lower. The mean net revenue for an
enterprise was only $20,000 and the median level was zero, with many
entrepreneurs unable even to extract a full salary for themselves from the
business.
12
They removed as much of a partial salary, in some instances
nothing at all, as the business would bear before losing money. A simpler
question asked them whether their business made money, lost money or
broke even. Almost all of the entrepreneurs were able to give an answer: 42
percent reported a positive net balance, 31 percent a negative balance, while
27 percent broke even.
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Accounting for Success and Failure
Explanation for the selection and success of immigrant self-employment
has moved through several stages, and different theoretical traditions.
Neoclassical economists have stressed the human capital of entrepreneurs
themselves, while sociologists identified the social contexts of ethnic and
class resources with the latter becoming increasingly salient with attempts
to recruit business immigrants (Marger 1989, 2001; Li 1992). At the same
time immigrants enter broader institutional and economic contexts, and an
interpretation that has emerged from the welfare states of Western Europe
stresses mixed-embeddedness, involving both an immigrant's position rela-
tive to the marketplace and also the presence of the interventionist arm of
the state (Kloosterman 2000; Rath 2000). With CIC officials monitoring
their immigrant entry routes, business immigrants in Canada are well aware
of the double discipline of both the market and the state.
Clearly the information gathering discussed in Chapter 3 was not ade-
quate, for entrepreneurs held far from satisfactory knowledge about the
economy they were entering and 70 percent did not find conditions in
Vancouver as they had expected them to be. In every case unexpected condi-
tions were prejudicial to business outcomes; in no cases were they beneficial.
Complaints repeated issues raised by other entrepreneurs in the family histo-
ries presented earlier: a small regional market and high business costs were
private market obstacles, while high taxation and wide-ranging regulations
reflected the interventionist public sector.
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Entrepreneurs sensed a double
jeopardy as they battled against these two demanding disciplinarians.
Adjustments occurred. Over 40 percent tore up their business plan and
looked at other sectors: there was a movement out of anticipated investment
in manufacturing, construction and the import-export trade, and a movement
into retailing and restaurants, sectors discouraged by provincial managers.
15
A graphic artist became a retailer of children's clothes, a garment manufac-
