Volume 28, Number 1, 2025

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This article contributes with the insights and reflections by Professor Helena Barnard, a distinguished scholar in the field of international business. Drawing on her extensive experience and knowledge, this interview provides a specifically African perspective on diaspora and migration in the context of international business and entrepreneurship. Professor Barnard’s research has illustrated various mechanisms and actors shaping international business, organizational practices, and global business landscapes. Her insights on diaspora and migration contribute to theorizing their role and impact and provide novel suggestions fostering scholarly research and critical discussions.

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This study introduces an updated conceptual model that extends the contextual literature on self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) into the opportunity recognition framework. Integrating individual and contextual factors, this model examines opportunity recognition by SIEs in informal economies, an under-researched area. The current global migration context, characterized by economic opportunities, geopolitical conflicts, and environmental changes, is leading to significant demographic and labor transformations. These changes are having a substantial impact on international entrepreneurship. The new model extends experiential learning and self-construal theories, incorporating work experience in informal economies, cultural intelligence, individualism, and risk aversion. This model illustrates how SIEs leverage their diaspora connections and advanced cross-cultural competencies to navigate and utilize the entrepreneurial ecosystem effectively. Additionally, the study provides new and testable research propositions. This approach offers a comprehensive understanding of how SIEs recognize and pursue opportunities in informal economies, highlighting the intricate interplay between individual attributes and contextual influences.

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International business and management operating across the world are increasingly influenced by internationalmigration and evolving diasporas. As a result, the landscapes of business, different business actors,and the respective patterns of diverse activities are shifting and influencing the world as a whole, especiallyhost and home countries. This Special Issue addresses these impacts reflecting not only entrepreneurial andmigratory behaviors, international mobility, entrepreneurship, trade and investments but also frameworks andinstitutions that shape and govern such processes. The contributions presented in this editorial provide multipleinsights not only into future avenues of research, specific populations, types of businesses, and areasbut also to respective policies and particular challenges and opportunities.

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Anti-immigrant sentiment has been one of the most prominent manifestations of rising populism in industrializedcountries in the last decade. Right-wing populists advocate greater restrictions on immigration, especiallyfrom the Global South. In this perspectives piece, we focus on the United States and the European Unionto discuss how global businesses can more effectively navigate the controversial issue of immigration in anera of rising populism. We look at immigration trends over the last decade, discuss different types of populism,and highlight some key events in the last decade that pointed to its rise. We identify several themes asto how managers can effectively engage with policymakers, including emphasizing the importance of attractingtalent to promote national competitiveness, working with policymakers at different levels, highlighting therole of skilled migrants in promoting trade, investment, and knowledge flows, and promoting integration as akey part of organizational training programs.

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Western societies address skill shortages via skilled migration programs, primarily utilized by ethnic minorities.Many first-generation skilled professional migrants (FGSPM), lacking prior entrepreneurial experience,choose entrepreneurship over employment in the host country. Understanding the psychological reasonsunderpinning this choice necessitates scholarly focus. Through an interdisciplinary literature review, we theorizea conceptual framework wherein the post-migration experiences of FGSPM engender a eudaimonic identity(EI) and eudaimonic well-being (EWB) crisis, which serves as the antecedent for entrepreneurial entry.This entry decision is enabled by the disposition of FGSPM and involves leveraging their unique human capital.Thus, entrepreneurship supports in resolving the FGSPM’s EI and EWB crisis. This framework contributesto migrant entrepreneurship literature by highlighting the EI and EWB crisis as the precursor to entrepreneurialentry, preceding disposition, and guiding future empirical research.

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This study explores the resilience of Brazilian businesses in Porto, Portugal, focusing on those that survivedthe COVID-19 pandemic. Entrepreneurs were interviewed before and after the pandemic, providing insightsinto the local entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) from a migrant perspective. Using a mixed embeddednessapproach, the research examines the pandemic’s impact on these businesses and identifies attributes criticalto their survival. This study highlights conceptual gaps in the EE framework, particularly regarding small businessesand migrant entrepreneurship during crises. Through Eisenhardt’s case study methodology, data werecollected via 32 in-depth interviews before the pandemic, with follow-ups revealing that only 15 businessesremained operational. Five surviving entrepreneurs were interviewed in detail. Resilient businesses, suchas restaurants and computer/cell-phone repair shops, adapted by offering in-home services and leveragingsocial media to engage clients, demonstrating creativity and risk-taking. Unlike many local entrepreneurs,Brazilians exhibited higher risk tolerance, using government financial aid not only for personal needs butalso to sustain their businesses. This research contributes to the literature by addressing theoretical gaps inmixed embeddedness and EE concepts, while applying an innovative analytical framework combining mixedembeddedness, resilience strategies, and resource orchestration theory. It offers practical implications forpolicymakers and stakeholders, emphasizing the economic and social integration of migrants. Tailored supportstrategies are recommended to address the unique challenges migrants face, underscoring the broadercontributions of migrant businesses to economic growth and social cohesion in host communities.

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The Uzbek diaspora plays an important role in Uzbekistan’s economic development by easing internationaltrade, promoting Diaspora Direct Investment (DDI), and transferring knowledge and skills. This study examineshow diaspora networks in Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, and Türkiye influence trade and investmentflows, highlighting their impact on Uzbekistan’s economy. The findings reveal that while remittances andinvestments contribute significantly to national development, challenges such as informal labor markets,regulatory inefficiencies, and weak engagement frameworks continue to limit their full potential. Addressingthese barriers through targeted tax incentives, dual citizenship reforms, and structured diaspora engagementpolicies could significantly enhance economic contributions. This study emphasizes the strategic importanceof diaspora networks and calls for proactive policy measures to optimize their role, positioning theUzbek diaspora as a key driver of sustainable economic growth.

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While the Indian diaspora has historical roots in Europe stemming from its colonial legacy of the Commonwealth,the contemporary research has focused on its impact in the United States, both in economic and increasinglypolitical terms. Yet, Indian diaspora is of theoretical and practical interest to the European Union (EU) due to itsmultiple roles in contributing to the economy of the “old continent.” There is limited knowledge about these complexand multilayered roles and impacts of diasporas as economic actors since most research takes a specificdisciplinary focus, for example, ethnic entrepreneurship, rather than an interdisciplinary view. This paper contributesby reviewing extant research and advancing the discussion across disciplines. It assesses the major elementsof relevance for future research by examining and discussing the evolving communities, characteristics,locations, businesses as well as the key roles and impacts of the Indian diaspora in the EU. It shows that Indiarepresents a key sending country of skilled labor to the EU; its diaspora demonstrates significant investments,entrepreneurship and business establishments while contributing to increasing trade relations.

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Employing the Getis-Ord local indicator of spatial autocorrelation and a combination of publicly available and restricted-access data on new business formation in Sweden, we document a novel set of results to extend the existing discourse on native and immigrant entrepreneurship. First, we find that the weak global interconnectedness in the data obscures the otherwise strong underlying local dynamics, with Swedish startups forming spatial clusters around the country’s largest economic hubs of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. Second, we find that spatial dependence appears slightly stronger among immigrants than among natives. We rationalize our observations using the selection and agglomeration theories of economics and the disadvantage and cultural-capital theories of entrepreneurship research.