Transnational networks and mobilities of IT migrant entrepreneurs in a globalizing world

ABSTRACT

Transnational entrepreneurship has its origins in studies on IT entrepreneurs in the US, and on the role of contextual influences that enable the emergence of vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems. In this paper, we look at the role of institutional actors and their transnational connections on transnational entrepreneurship. Based on interviews with institutional actors in two IT hubs of the Californian Silicon Valley and the Maltese Silicon Valletta, we reveal how the transnational connectedness of entrepreneurial ecosystems emerges from the transnational connections of these institutional actors. We further map the connectedness between industry-specific entrepreneurial ecosystems, and we conceptualize these as intra- and cross-categorical transnational connections. This illustrates the mechanism of IT, industry-specific entrepreneurial ecosystems, differing from the logic of other industries, such as finance. This industry-specific perspective of entrepreneurial ecosystems reveals how they are transnationally connected and how transnational entrepreneurship ‘from below’, and its associated mobility contribute to the overall global economy.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant entrepreneurship
• IT industry
• transnational networks
• network of entrepreneurial ecosystems
• contextual entrepreneurship

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Luis Karcher for his graphic support with the initial draft of visualizing the Maltese entrepreneurial ecosystem in Figure 4.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In fact, as Pattinson et al. (2018) write ‘The ecosystem concept would seem to be of increasing importance in high-tech sectors where coopetition is conducted around digital platforms where direct relationships may not exist between key complementors’ (p. 26).

2 Institutions in the sense of organization sociology, where actors are representatives of the governmental organizations, companies, and further support agencies (see also Table 2).

3 Institutional actors are still individuals; however, acting on behalf of their organizations and not as private individuals.

4 Further accounts in migrant entrepreneurship research are emphasizing the ‘mixed-embeddedness’ in social networks and institutional contexts (Bagwell, 2018; Solano, 2019).

5 Influential actors, in the context of organizational sociology, are individuals in managerial roles and decision power in the organization. Consequently, normally the higher the position within the institutional, the more influential the actor comes. In the case of this study, these actors had a direct influence on the shaping of the shaping of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

6 Although institutional actors, especially in public support organizations, might not appear to have their own business interest, their aim and contents of activities and contributions to the entrepreneurial ecosystem are inherently economic. Thus, they are institutional actors by organizational view, but in actors-perspective simultaneously also economic actors. The terms will thus be used interchangeable for this specific group in focus.

7 The fieldwork was conducted before the UK formally left the EU in January 2020.

8 For example, we see in figure 4 that government agencies in Malta are connected to UK agencies while service providers come from the Silicon Valley.

9 The map was created using Infrapedia, which is a ‘crowd-sourced near real-time map of the global Internet infrastructure detailing the world's submarine and terrestrial networks as well as other critical infrastructure assets [for the IT network] in real time while giving the ability to network professionals to connect with each other’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sakura Yamamura

Sakura Yamamura is a junior professor of digital methods in human geography at RWTH Aachen University and senior research partner at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, where she had also been a post-doctoral research fellow from 2018 to 2022. With expertise in migration studies, urban and economic geography, her work focuses on the spatiality of social and economic activities in migrant-led diversification of society. She studied geography, sociology, and social/cultural anthropology at the University of Hamburg, Université de Paris 1 – Sorbonne and the University of California Berkeley. Her works are published by leading journals, such as Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Migration and Urban Studies, with contributions in seminal volumes, such as the Handbook on superdiversity published by Oxford University Press.

Paul Lassalle

Paul Lassalle is a senior lecturer at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde. He studied sociology and political sciences at Sciences Po Paris and is conducting research on societal issues of diversity and migration in entrepreneurship. He publishes in both leading entrepreneurship and migration journals, such as Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. His most recent publications include works on intersectionality in entrepreneurship, as well as research on superdiversity in Glasgow and on migrant entrepreneurs’ diversification strategies. For his research engagements, he collaborates with the Scottish Government and with institutions supporting migrant entrepreneurs in the establishment and the development of their new ventures.