Title: The influence of length of stay on immigrant entrepreneurship

Authors: Aissa Mosbah; Kalsom Abd Wahab; Jaithen Abdullah Alharbi; Hassan Ghasadi Almahdi

Addresses: Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies, Management and Science University, Seksyen 13, 40100 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia ' Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, 21, FEM, Bandar Baru Nilai, 71800 Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia ' College of Business and Economics, University of Qatar, P.O. Box 2713 – Doha, Qatar ' College of Business Administration, Jazan University, No. 6, Al Maarefah Road, Jazan, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Length of stay, a concept not properly addressed in migration studies, refers to the usual period spent by an immigrant in the host country up to the moment he/she is surveyed for research purpose. This paper adopted a mix approach that blends review, synthetisation and discussion of existing research to apprehend the use of this concept in the literature and draw useful insights on the extent to which it influences business establishment and performance. Our discussion concluded with the following notes: first, immigrant entrepreneurship researchers have so far favoured length of stay over firm age in predicting the entrepreneurial outcomes. Second, length of stay was used in two different ways: backward and forward. Third, immigrants with short lengths of stay or short settlement intentions tend to have lower propensities for self-employment compared to their peers who have longer settlement intentions, and they are most likely to locate their businesses within their ethnic communities. In contrary, immigrants with long length of stay or long settlement intention are in better positions to understand the mainstream market, more likely to behave like natives, have higher propensities to start a business, and prefer to locate their businesses outside the co-ethnic community.

Keywords: immigrant; host country; length of stay; performance; self-employment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2020.107800

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2020 Vol.40 No.3, pp.309 - 321

Received: 18 Nov 2017
Accepted: 10 Apr 2018
Published online: 22 Jun 2020 *

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