Learning of Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Local Tacit Business Knowledge

Abstract

The immigrant entrepreneurs’ capabilities to recognize and gain tacit business knowledge are critical for their success in the host country. However, little scholarly attention has been given to the issue of business learning of immigrant entrepreneurs in a host country. Through multiple theoretical lenses, our study fills the gap by examining the extent to which the human and social capital of immigrant entrepreneurs is associated with the local business tacit knowledge learning in terms of learning capacities and facilitation. Based on a sample of immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia, the findings of our study indicate that industry-specific training and cultural similarity of cognitive social capital are related to immigrant entrepreneurs’ tacit marketing knowledge learning. The formal education of context-generic human capital enables them with tacit financial knowledge learning. Moreover, trustworthiness of relational social capital plays a critical role in facilitating their learning in both tacit marketing and financial knowledge. This study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by addressing issues of immigrant entrepreneurs’ business learning. Keywords: Tacit Marketing and Financial Knowledge, Relational and Cognitive Social Capital, Human Capital, Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Learning Capabilities and Facilitation To cite this document: Karen Y. Wang, Chanida Kitvorametha, and Yue Wang, "Learning of Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Local Tacit Business Knowledge", Contemporary Management Research, Vol.10, No.1, pp.81-104, 2014. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/cmr.10595