Immigrant Businesses

MAE BAKER Lecturer in Accounting and Finance, Leeds University Business School GILES BARRETT Lecturer in Human Geography and Urban Studies, Liverpool John Moores University BERT BULDER Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Utrecht University HENK FLAP Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Fellow of the ICS-Research School, Utrecht University GARY P. FREEMAN Professor of Government, University of Texas and Director of the Department's Public Policy Clinic TREVOR P. JONES Reader in Social Geography, Liverpool John Moores University KEVIN KEASEY Director, Financial Services Research Centre and the Leeds Permanent Building Society Professor of Financial Services, University of Leeds RONALD VAN KEMPEN Associate Professor of Urban Geography, Urban Research Centre, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Utrecht University ROBERT KLOOSTERMAN Senior Researcher, OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, Delft University of Technology IVAN LIGHT Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles DAVID MC EVOY Director, School of Social Science and Professor of Urban Geography, Liverpool John Moores University NEDIM A-GELMAN Doctoral student in Political Science, University of Texas, Austin STEPHAN RAES Lecturer, Political Economy of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, Catholic University of Nijmegen ANS REKERS Career Center, University of Amsterdam RICHARD STARING PhD Student, Utrecht University ROGER WALDINGER Professor of Sociology and Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, University of California, Los Angeles ROBERT WILSON Professor of Finance and Accounting, Leeds University Business School

The starting point of this book is that a proper understanding of these businesses is served by focusing on the embeddedness of immigrant businesses in their economic, politico-institutional and social environments from a multi-disciplinary perspective rather than confining the attention to ethnic-cultural or economic sociological aspects only.In the past few years, a considerable number of immigrants have established their own businesses. In doing so, they have contributed in many ways to the economic development of American and European metropolitan areas. Some businesses have been incorporated into the mainstream, while others have stayed on the economic fringes and got engaged in the informal economy. The starting point of this book is that a proper understanding of these businesses is served by focusing on the embeddedness of immigrant businesses in their economic, politico-institutional and social environments from a multi-disciplinary perspective rather than confining the attention to ethnic-cultural or economic sociological aspects only.