In this paper, based on in‐depth interviews with immigrant entrepreneurs in Turkey, we present an investigation of immigrant entrepreneurship in a developing nation. In doing so, we seek to fill the gap in research regarding immigrant entrepreneurs in developing economies.

First, immigrant entrepreneurs rely on their unique human and social capital in the process of starting businesses thanks to their ability to identify opportunities based on insider knowledge of the market in their home and host countries.

We analyze the differences between business owners motivated by opportunity and necessity in terms of their (1) socioeconomic characteristics, (2) personality, and (3) perceptions of entrepreneurial support.

Why does an individual take the personal and financial risks associated with setting up a new venture? Individuals decide to engage in entrepreneurial activity because of different (combinations of) start-up motivations.

The present paper contributes to the current literature in two ways. First, we attempt to find robust evidence of distinctive characteristics and drivers of opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs(hip) by drawing upon an international database covering more than 30 countries. While existing studies investigate opportunity and necessity motivations only at the national level, our approach allows us to control for cross-country heterogeneity. Second, we extend the set of characteristics by taking into account not only an individual’s socioeconomic profile but also an individual’s personality and perceptions of entrepreneurial support.

Chrysostome (2010, p. 138) argues that necessity immigrant entrepreneurs are immigrants who undertake entrepreneurial activities because they face obstacles that deny them access to the job market of the host country.

are in accord that social connections are particularly vital for immigrant entrepreneurs given that social linkages are essential for providing immigrant entrepreneurs with information about the new foreign environment and about existing business opportunities.

Opportunity immigrant entrepreneurs are immigrants who freely decide to start a business to take advantage of the business opportunity

Cultural and disadvantage theories have been employed in explaining immigrants’ entrepreneurship career choices. According to the disadvantage theory, firm creation constitutes an attractive alternative for the immigrants facing disadvantages in the labor market (Light, 1979). One of the worst disadvantages is unemployment, but other obstacles include a lack of fluency in language (Min, 1984), foreign credentials viewed skeptically by potential employers (Waldinger, 1986), and labor market discrimination against racial, ethnic, or religious subgroups (Zhou and Logan, 1989).

While there is little doubt that immigrants are entrepreneurially active, our knowledge of the factors that explain their intentions to start new ventures is not complete

Results show that immigrants were much more likely than natives to become unemployed or leave the labor force after a period in self-employment, supporting the idea that immigrants are pushed out of self-employment.

female immigrants sometimes experienced a “double disadvantage.”

reasons behind native-immigrant differences2 in exit from self-employment in Belgium and a

Results show that immi-grants were much more likely than natives to become unemployed or leave thelabor force after a period in self-employment, supporting the idea that immigrantsare pushed out of self-employment.

Results show that immi-grants were much more likely than natives to become unemployed or leave thelabor force after a period in self-employment, supporting the idea that immigrantsare pushed out of self-employment.

Here, formal barriers may include non-validated foreign qualifications, or more radically not having a legal right to work altogether. In the latter case, self-employment remains an attractive form of work as it enables immigrants to escape detection by the authorities (Parker, Citation2009Parker, S. (2009). The economics of entrepreneurship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]).