posted on 2022-03-28, 19:13authored byThomas Antwi Bosiakoh
This thesis on entrepreneurship of Nigerian immigrants in Ghana, is positioned at the intersection of mixed embeddedness as an explanatory framework for migration and the formation of immigrant entrepreneurship in a developing country context. Leaning on the constructivist epistemology with the empirical base anchored in in-depth interviews and observation data from Accra, the capital of Ghana, Kumasi, the second largest city after Accra, and Ashaiman, a sprawling sub-urban settlement, it argues that the formation of immigrant entrepreneurship can be researched as a form of mixed embeddedness. Moreover, since most research on immigrant entrepreneurship and mixed embeddedness focus on advanced western societies and less reflective of the actualities in developing country contexts, it demonstrates that Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana can be used to understand mixed embeddedness and extend it along the lines of borderlands and transnationalism.
From this view, this thesis defines mixed embeddedness as a multi-level concept that aggregate around four domains, namely the entrepreneurs’ own group characteristics as embeddedness, the Ghanaian context of embeddedness, borderland as context for embeddedness, and transnational embeddedness. First, it shows that the entrepreneurs’ group characteristics such as their culturally produced apprenticeship system and high theocentric orientation together with their variegated network categories, serve as embeddedness for their entrepreneurial practices. Secondly, it demonstrates that, the operation of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana is conditioned on the Ghanaian-specific characteristics. In specific, they are embedded in the Ghanaian urban/inner city, socio-cultural, economic, political, policy, legal and historical contexts. Thirdly, the study shows that the mixed embeddedness of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana should be linked to Ghana as a borderland context in which the entrepreneurial behaviours and actions of the immigrants are embedded, shaped and underline their borderland entrepreneurial characteristics. Finally, the entrepreneurs maintain embeddedness in a wider transnational context that is rooted in the contextual conditions of the trans-West African sub-regional economic structure and beyond. These findings contribute to knowledge of immigrant entrepreneurship and the mixed embeddedness approach within a non-western empirical frame, and further opens our understanding through incorporating the notions of borderlands and transnationalism as specifications in mixed embeddedness.
History
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction to migration and immigrant entrepreneurship -- Chapter 2. A socio-economic and political portrait of Ghana and the evolution of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship -- Chapter 3. Literature review of immigrants’ entrepreneurship research -- Chapter 4. Immigrant entrepreneurship : theoretical foundations and application to Nigerian entrepreneurs in Ghana -- Chapter 5. Research methodology & characteristics of the entrepreneurs and their businesses -- Chapter 6. Understanding Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in contemporary Ghana -- Chapter 7. Mixed embeddedness and Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana -- Chapter 8. Nigerian (immigrant) entrepreneurs in borderland locations in Ghana -- Chapter 9. Transnational embeddedness of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana -- Chapter 10. Mixed embeddedness and Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana : synthesis and conclusion -- Bibliography -- Appendices.
Notes
Bibliography: pages 251-292
Theoretical thesis.
Awarding Institution
Macquarie University
Degree Type
Thesis PhD
Degree
PhD, Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Sociology
Department, Centre or School
Department of Sociology
Year of Award
2017
Principal Supervisor
Ellie Vasta
Additional Supervisor 1
Norbert Ebert
Rights
Copyright Thomas Antwi Bosiakoh 2017.
Copyright disclaimer: http://mq.edu.au/library/copyright