Local liabilities and interaction between native and immigrant firms

The aim of the paper is to analyze the interaction between native and immigrant firms in local systems focusing on the case of Chinese immigrant firms as a business community settled in a specific territory, that of an Italian industrial district. The coexistence of native and immigrant entrepreneurship may represent a fertile ground for the emergence of liabilities, namely the liability of outsidership, defined as the difficulties that must be addressed by those who are external to the most effective and important international networks, distinguishing outsiders from insider actors (Johanson and Vahlne, 2009; Schweizer, 2013). The paper proposes a twofold perspective: on one hand, immigrant Chinese firms, despite being insider to global networks, can perceive a liability of outsidership in the local network; on the other hand, native entrepreneurs can perceive a liability of outsidership in the global network in which immigrant entrepreneurs are embedded. Interacting in business networks can offer an important perspective to explain the possible exploitation of opportunities as a result of interacting and facing local liabilities. The paper adopts a qualitative methodology proposing a case study approach in which the empirical setting is represented by an Italian industrial district that has experienced huge immigration flows and the establishment of a large Chinese community of people and companies active in the textile industry. The study allows the authors to highlight the liabilities that may emerge locally, where a transnational oriented business network established by Chinese immigrants and local business networks established by native entrepreneurs coexist.