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Purpose: This paper aims to understand how immigrant entrepreneurs use digital opportunities to overcome the liability of newness and foreignness and how an immigrant's ethnicity can be digitally performed as an asset in business.

Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts an inductive multiple case study approach using social media content. The data consist of over 3,500 posts, images and screenshots from Facebook, Instagram and the webpages of seven successful Vietnamese restaurants in Sweden. Grounded content analysis was conducted using NVivo.

Findings: The findings suggest that digitalising ethnic artifacts can mediate and facilitate three digital performances that together can turn ethnicity from a liability to an asset: (i) preserving performance through digital ethnicising, (ii) embracing performance through digital generativitising and (iii) appropriating performance through digital fusionising. The results support the introduction of a conceptual framework depicting the interwoven duality of horizontal and vertical boundary blurring, in which the former takes place between the offline and online spaces of immigrant businesses, and the latter occurs between the home and host country attachment of the immigrant businesses.

Originality/value: This study responds to calls for understanding how immigrant entrepreneurs can overcome the liability of foreignness. It offers a fresh look at ethnicity, which has been seen in a negative light in the field of immigrant entrepreneurship. This study illuminates that ethnicity can be used as a resource in immigrant entrepreneurship, specifically through the use of digital artifacts and digital platforms.

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.

Family can play any of a variety of roles in the entrepreneurial process of migrants; yet the literature tends to consider family as a homogeneous unit. In reality, families comprise different structures ranging from a nuclear family to a extended family. Furthermore, given that migrant entrepreneurs may have family in their countries of origin as well as often in their countries of residence, we should consider that the notion of family and its influence can vary from one country to another. In this chapter, we aim to better understand the role of family heterogeneity in the starting of a new venture by migrant entrepreneurs by looking into family functions. We address the following research questions: (i) What family functions are present in the countries of origin and residence in the process of migrant entrepreneurs starting a new venture; and (ii) How do such functions facilitate or hinder the new venture?The chapter identifies three family functions—or family ways of working—that facilitate the new venture-creation process: (i) changing family responsibilities;  (ii) family acting as a catalyzer;  and (iii) family acting as bedrock. These functions are not static features, but rather processes influencing the venture-creation process. Family functions change as needed during the venture-creation process. Such changes, however, are limited to the pool of resources available to the migrant entrepreneur and his or her family in the countries of origin and residence. Family can play any of a variety of roles in the entrepreneurial process of migrants; yet the literature tends to consider family as a homogeneous unit. In reality, families comprise different structures ranging from a nuclear family to a extended family. Furthermore, given that migrant entrepreneurs may have family in their countries of origin as well as often in their countries of residence, we should consider that the notion of family and its influence can vary from one country to another. In this chapter, we aim to better understand the role of family heterogeneity in the starting of a new venture by migrant entrepreneurs by looking into family functions. We address the following research questions: (i) What family functions are present in the countries of origin and residence in the process of migrant entrepreneurs starting a new venture; and (ii) How do such functions facilitate or hinder the new venture?The chapter identifies three family functions—or family ways of working—that facilitate the new venture-creation process: (i) changing family responsibilities;  (ii) family acting as a catalyzer;  and (iii) family acting as bedrock. These functions are not static features, but rather processes influencing the venture-creation process. Family functions change as needed during the venture-creation process. Such changes, however, are limited to the pool of resources available to the migrant entrepreneur and his or her family in the countries of origin and residence. 

This study explores the intricate dynamics of immigrant family entrepreneurship, examining how immigrant family entrepreneurs navigate tensions between economic and social integration for sustainability through three longitudinal case studies of immigrant family businesses. Utilizing paradox theory, we offer a multi-dimensional perspective that captures the complexity of immigrant family businesses in Sweden. Our research enriches existing theoretical frameworks on immigrant family entrepreneurship by considering both economic and social facets in tandem. Our findings underscore the pivotal role of the family in navigating the tensions of immigrant family entrepreneurship, with family members acting both as facilitators and inhibitors. Our insights can guide policymakers and practitioners in fostering more inclusive and sustainable immigrant entrepreneurial communities in practice. This study contributes to the broader discourse on sustainability challenges in immigrant family entrepreneurship, aligning with the goals of social and economic sustainability.

Purpose: This study explores how the family influences the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) process in immigrant businesses.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on inductive multiple-case studies using 34 in-depth interviews. This paper relies on three cases of immigrant entrepreneurs originating from Mexico and Colombia that established firms in Sweden.

Findings: The results suggest that EO development trajectories vary in the presence of family roles (i.e. inspirers, backers and partners), resulting in the immigrant family business configurations of family-role-influenced proactiveness, risk-taking and innovation.

Originality/value: The immigrant family configurations drive three EO-enabling scenarios: (1) home-country framing, (2) family backing and (3) transnational translating. Immigrant family dynamics facilitate the development of EO over time through reciprocal interaction processes across contexts. This study indicates that, through family dynamics, EO develops as mutually interactive processes between the immigrant entrepreneur's family in the home and host countries.

The call for papers for this special issue aims to examine how migrant entrepreneurs and their families across borders rely on their places of origin and residence to promote migrant entrepreneurship and shape the entrepreneurial processes, contexts, and outcomes for migrant entrepreneurs, their families, and their communities. In doing so, this editorial and the articles of the special issue advance our knowledge of the role of the family in the countries of origin and residence for migrant entrepreneurship and propose a future research agenda on family resourcefulness across borders. We first discuss the research problem and positioning of this editorial, then briefly review the articles published in this special issue. As an outcome of the discussions, we introduce family resourcefulness across borders as a lens to gain future insights on migrant entrepreneurship. Finally, this editorial discussion presents future research directions.