Liabilities of native and immigrant entrepreneurship in the processes of globalization

This chapter introduces the main issues addressed in the book by examining the liabilities of native and immigrant entrepreneurship in local contexts from a multidisciplinary perspective. Immigration leads to the presence of different cultures in the same place of settlement. This may push immigrant entrepreneurship into ethnic enclaves because of discrimination and racism. However, through globalization, native entrepreneurship can also lose centrality and become peripheral in global markets compared with the transnational networks. Both groups (immigrants and natives) can experience liabilities of outsidership, and acculturation stress. The local liabilities are associated with costs, competitiveness losses, and missed business opportunities. These liabilities may significantly affect the development of Prato’s industrial district, on which the city’s economic prosperity relies. The liabilities of native and immigrant entrepreneurship are so many and so varied, that they do not solely concern market relationships.