Date of Award

7-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Department

Bisk College of Business

First Advisor

Robert Schaller

Second Advisor

Wanfa Zhang

Third Advisor

Steven Rivet

Fourth Advisor

Najy Daher

Abstract

The rate of immigrant entrepreneurship continues to grow, affecting economic development in many host country communities. Immigrant entrepreneurs are found in past research studies to be outpacing host natives in entrepreneurial activities, offering additional economic, social, and cultural benefits. This study examined a phenomenon at the individual immigrant entrepreneur level in the United States to provide increased insight into understanding the phenomena of surges in immigrant entrepreneurial startups for continued research on immigrant entrepreneurship to effect related policy formation and decisions. This research examined a cohort of eighteen post-Soviet immigrant entrepreneurs from 11 different Eastern European countries with successful businesses in five different states in the United States operating in ten different market segments of the economy, and their ability to rapidly overcome host country barriers beyond bare subsistence needs to establish and sustain new businesses in the United States. In the process, a new definition of entrepreneurial success was observed and formulated. With exponential growth in demand for entrepreneurship learning, immigrant influxes in the U.S., and immigrant startups are now outpacing American natives two to one in the United States. This study aimed to examine a micro-level phenomenon regarding the immigrant entrepreneurship success of post-Soviets in the United States. It proposes a conceptual model built on the belief that there was a potential advantage for immigrant invisibleness in a host country. The study focused on defining success from the participants' worldview by developing an Immigrant Entrepreneurial Needs (IEN) framework to determine how the participants report initial and sustained success through their motivational lifecycle. Finally, the research offers further definition and meaning to a novel concept called immigrant entrepreneurial intelligence (EI) for continued research consideration.

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