An American Story


Book Description

In an atmosphere where the Mexican American population is viewed in terms of immigrant labor, this edited book examines the strong tradition of wealth creation and business creation within this population. In the introduction, readers are presented with enterprises such as Latin Works and Real Links, which represent large, successful, and middle-size businesses. Chapters span research methods and units of analysis, utilizing archival data, ethnographic data, and the analysis of traditional census data to disaggregate gender and more broadly examine questions of business formation. From the chapters emerges a picture of problems overcome, success, and contemporary difficulties in developing new businesses. Analysis reveals how Mexican American entrepreneurs compare with other ethnic groups as they continue to build their ventures. This work is a refreshing alternative to books that focus on the labor aspects of the Mexican American experience. Contributors reveal the strong history of self-help and entrepreneurship of this population.




Rethinking Migration


Book Description

Includes statistical tables.




Immigration Reconsidered


Book Description

Providing an interdisciplinary and global perspective on immigration to the United States, this collection of essays brings together the work of leading scholars in the field--including the work of such distinguished historians, sociologists, and political scientists as Charles Tilly, Philip Curtin, Kirby Miller, Sucheng Chan, Alejandro Portes, Lawrence Fuchs, and Aristide Zolberg--and represents an important step forward in the development of immigration studies. The book helps redirect thinking on the subject by giving a summary of the current state of immigration studies and a coherent new perspective that emphasizes the international dimensions of the immigrant experience from the time of the slave trade to present-day movements of Asian and Latin American peoples. Immigration Reconsidered challenges ethnocentric American or European perspectives on immigration, disputes the classical assimilation model of a linear progression of immigrant cultures toward a dominant American national character, questions human capital theory as an explanation of ethnic group achievement, reveals conflicting ethnic and racial attitudes toward immigration restriction, and examines the revival of interest in oral history, immigrant autobiographies, and other subjective documents. Offering a new approach to immigration studies for the 1990s, Immigration Reconsidered is important reading for anyone who wants to know how the America came to be as it is today.




Entrepreneurship


Book Description

Entrepreneurship is credited for technological invention, the rise of corporate empires and directly linked to economic development around the world. This multi-volume set of original essays showcases emerging theory and practice in entrepreneurship to illuminate its many facets, covering such topics as business models, entrepreneurial mindset, market research, capitalization, intellectual property, risk and uncertainty, and organizational culture. Volume 1, People, focuses on the intersection between individuals and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on the cognitive, economic, social, and institutional factors that influence people's behavior with respect to entrepreneurship. Volume 2, Process, explores such topics as idea generation, market entry, financing, team building, and growth strategies, following the lifecycle of a new venture. Volume 3, Place, considers the context in which entrepreneurship is practiced, including corporate venturing, family enterprise, franchising, and public policies designed to promote entrepreneurship and economic development. Featuring contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, and with a global perspective throughout, this unique set explores new models, trends, and practices in entrepreneurship that will be of interest to a wide array of academics, professionals, and newcomers to the field.




Immigrant Entrepreneurship


Book Description

Immigration is currently one of the most vivid challenges the European Union faces. Ways of introducing new migrants to society and economy pose significant challenges, thus some guidelines for the policy design towards migrations are in need. This book points out patterns of approaches leading to entrepreneurial activities, implemented by the immigrants from the Far East: China, Vietnam, South Korea, India, and Philippines. At these stage comparisons with other countries are both possible and necessary, as many countries all over the world face challenges connected with defining migration policies. From the studies included in the book, readers will gain first-hand knowledge about immigrant entrepreneurship in Poland against the Western European or USA background of similar processes described by researchers in other countries. The areas covered in the studies include the main reasons for starting new ventures and the sources of opportunities, processes of defining customers and factors influencing the choice between an ethnic and local business, immigrants' approaches to building market position, defining success and development, as well as the issues of cultural, institutional, legal and economic differences. The studies show that significant differences in entrepreneurial activities appear between the first and second generations of immigrants. They also depict how entrepreneurial activities help in assimilation processes, as well as in building ties between the immigrants and host societies. Moreover, the study will deepen the understanding of entrepreneurial activities of immigrants in countries that are traditionally considered to be less attractive targets for migration. Thus, the processes of migration will be not only better understood and described but will also allow to provide some guidelines both for policymakers and future researchers




Class, Ethnicity, Gender and Latino Entrepreneurship


Book Description

Drawing on surveys and in-depth interviews, this book examines the social and economic relations of first-generation Latino entrepreneurs. Verdaguer explores social patterns between and within groups, situating immigrant entrepreneurship within concrete geographical, demographic and historical spaces. Her study not only reveals that Latinos' strategies for access to business ownership and for business development are cut across class, ethnic and gender lines, but also that immigrants' options, practices, and social spaces remain largely shaped by patriarchal gender relations within the immigrant family, community and economy. This book is a necessary addition to the literature on immigration, class, gender relations, and the intersectionality of these issues.




Rethinking Globalization(S)


Book Description

Contributors from diverse disciplinary, ideological, and theoretical perspectives, examine the multiple aspects and dimensions of globalization. By employing a variety of methodological approaches, the authors provide insights into the role of numerous agents in furthering the process and project of present and future globalization(s), as manifested in economic, political and cultural domains. Furthermore, they address the impacts of globalization in nation-states, emancipatory feminist and environmental movements, and migrant communities, as well as identify their participation in and opposition to the phenomena of globalization.




Transnational Entrepreneurship


Book Description

This edited volume develops an understanding of the strategies, processes, issues and concerns involved when small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) go international with their local products/services and vice versa. It is a compendium of eighteen selected chapters on the subject, supported by an introductory chapter. The contributions are organized in four parts based on the sub-themes they deal with. The first part, containing the introductory chapter, provides different perspectives on transnational entrepreneurship, returnee entrepreneurship and their linkages with the internationalization process. The subsequent parts have chapters dealing with three sub-themes of the subject – the internal factors (individual and firm-level resources), the external factors (entrepreneurial ecosystem), and the process of organizational transformation and change, respectively, in the context of SME internationalization. Special issues and challenges being faced by SME entrepreneurs in emerging economies have been highlighted in this book, discussing key contemporary issues with regard to internationalization in the three dimensions outlined above. Further, the book explains how an entrepreneur can engineer the transformation of his/her organization into an international SME. This book is a very useful resource for entrepreneurs and policy-makers in general, and for academics and researchers in particular, as it provides an overview of the contemporary research in the critical areas of SME internationalization and transnational entrepreneurship by highlighting the linkages between them with special reference to emerging economies.




Black Identities


Book Description

The story of West Indian immigrants to the United States is generally considered to be a great success. Mary Waters, however, tells a very different story. She finds that the values that gain first-generation immigrants initial success--a willingness to work hard, a lack of attention to racism, a desire for education, an incentive to save--are undermined by the realities of life and race relations in the United States. Contrary to long-held beliefs, Waters finds, those who resist Americanization are most likely to succeed economically, especially in the second generation.




A New Kind of Containment


Book Description

This book addresses "containment" as it relates to interlocking discourses around the "War on Terror" as a global effort and its link to race and sexuality within the United States. The project emerged from the recognition that the events of 11 September 2001, prompted new efforts at containment with both domestic and international implications. Philosophy of Peace (POP), in conjunction with Concerned Philosophers for Peace, explores socio-political and ethical perspectives on modern warfare, peacemaking, and conflict resolution, including the many forms of domestic and global violence, such as sexism, racism, and classism.