Fase III: análisis de los resultados.
COMPRENDIENDO VOY APRENDIENDO
From the results and analysis of this chapter, it can be revealed that the following four factors were considered the most influential on business start-up for the Vietnamese migrant entrepreneurs. The following are considered as the key start-up factors:
1. Business skills developed in the family in Vietnam; 2. Importance of ethnic community contacts;
3. The makeup of more than 50% of Vietnamese customers at the start-up phase; 4. Prior work experience.
Each of these four start-up factors was determined based on the high rate of the interviewee’s answering ‘yes’ to the following questions: Did your family run a business in Vietnam? Are your ethnic community contacts important? What is the make-up of Vietnamese customer base at the start of the operation over 50%? Did you have work
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experience prior to business start-up? It was important for the Vietnamese to have family business skills in Vietnam. Research has shown that prior family exposure has an important influence of establishing a business operation (Dyer & Handler, 1994). Many Vietnamese owners have rated the importance of having ethnic community contacts in their business start-up as this assisted them in launching their businesses through these contacts for business information. A respondent that has regarded their ethnic community with importance commented:
“I believe that the support of the ethnic community is very important to me. My customers are very supportive of my business. I believe in offering affordable prices
to them in order to keep them satisfied.” [Interviewee 35]
This was supported by Teixeira (2009) who found that migrant business owners tend to rely on their ethnic community for business knowledge.
It was not surprising to see that most Vietnamese small businesses had more than 50% Vietnamese customers at the start of their business operation. A respondent with a high representation of Vietnamese customer’s said:
“I had over 90% of Vietnamese customers at the start when I first opened my business. My customers are very important to me as they make up most of my
sales and they are very happy with the products” [Interviewee 30]
Waldinger et al., (1990) suggest that ethnic businesses rely on their own ethnic customers for the support of their products and services, and this has been clearly supported by this study.
Lastly, having prior industry and work experience was considered another important factor for business start-up, as it was revealed that majority of the Vietnamese owners had prior exposure. One respondent noted that:
“I bought my current optometry business because I had the qualification and industry experience. I was working at an optometrist when the owner was looking at selling
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This is acknowledged by Dana (1993) who found an advantage for business owners to have prior work experience as they can bring these skills and experience into their businesses.
5.7 Summary
From these respondents’ perspectives, it does seem that the antecedent personal factors of these respondents had a stronger influence on business start-up than the negative environmental factors of being in an unfamiliar cultural setting. We have shown that personal factors such as education, age and business experience have a high impact on the successful Vietnamese migrant entrepreneur starting up a business. Negative environmental factors such as employment prospects had a minimal impact, as the results indicated that only a few Vietnamese migrants faced issues of blocked mobility which caused them to undertake a business start-up. This also took into consideration of the Vietnamese migrant having minimal English language skills and labour skills recognition. It is suspected here that positive environmental factors, such as ethnic enclave support, more than compensated for blockages, particularly for the later arrivals. This is due to the access of their ethnic community for business information which has existed through their established ethnic enclave.
There was a significant difference in experience found which was linked to the of time arrival of the migrant that had an impact on the environmental and personal factors, which then translated to an impact on the business start-up phase. The results indicated that the early arrivals were mainly refugees, whilst later year arrivals seem to be dominated by sponsorships. Responses to interviews indicated that, not surprisingly perhaps, there seems to have been less financial support for migrants arriving early, whereas the migrants that arrived later had more immediate support from families, had higher education levels and a range of previously attained business skills.
Based on the Ethnic Entrepreneurship theory map results, the majority of the interview results indicate that respondents’ circumstances were best described in terms of Ethnic Resource and Ethnic Enclave theories (refer to Figure 5.5). This implies that, in the main, Vietnamese migrants, particularly those who were later arrivals, had the support of their families, relatives and friends to help them start up their business within their community. The next chapter discusses the results and findings of the business survival phase for this study.