Assessing Immigrant Entrepreneurs’ Contribution To Employment Creation And Entrepreneurship Development: Case Study Of Small Retailers In Mangaung

Abstract

In spite of the numerous initiatives put in place by the South African government to equip its citizens with necessary entrepreneurial skills to create businesses for employment and economic development, the country still faces the shortage of entrepreneurial skills and huge unemployment. In addition to the initiatives, the presence of immigrant resulted in ‘immigrant entrepreneurs’ who are establishing small businesses in various sectors and employing local citizens. However, to my knowledge, no academic research exists that has empirically examined the contribution of immigrant entrepreneurs to local citizens’ employment and entrepreneurial development. This study, therefore, examines the contribution of immigrant entrepreneurs to employment creation and entrepreneurship development of local citizens in the Mangaung Metropolitan area, Free State Province in South Africa. Drawing on an interpretivist epistemology and qualitative research approach, an interview guide for immigrant entrepreneurs and local citizens was used to establish the contribution of immigrant entrepreneurs on job creation and entrepreneurial development of local citizens. Ten (10) semi-structured interviews were conducted with local citizens and ten (10) interviews were conducted with immigrant entrepreneurs - that added up to twenty (20) participants. Although local citizens expressed some negative opinions about the immigrants, they had positive affirmations of the immigrants’ businesses, which they perceived to boost their business knowledge and standard of living. Immigrant entrepreneurs conceived government support as a valuable tool when seeking to understand their contribution to job creation and to develop the local citizens’ entrepreneurial skills. As such, the results demonstrated that entrepreneurial skills transfer via in-store training influenced local citizens’ decision to start businesses. Moreover, interventions through several initiatives to promote collaborations with immigrant entrepreneurs might help to improve the growth of entrepreneurial development in order to expand the transfer of entrepreneurial skills amongst the local citizens. Lastly, results demonstrated that skills can be transferred to local citizens who are willing to start a business through the intervention of government programmes, and develop effective strategies for fostering long-term bonds between immigrants and local citizens. Details of the study including findings, conclusions and recommendations are presented and discussed in the main report.