Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Sweden – Strategies for Firm Growth

Abstract: Firm growth can be seen as a driving and determinant factor for economical development and employment in Sweden and other counties. SMEs plays an important role and are bearing most of the economical growth and employment on their shoulders and represent 99,4 percent of all the firms registered in Sweden, which in return makes it important that they grow and develop. Every fifth firm established today is run by an immigrant entrepreneur and so far the immigrant entrepreneurs represent 14 percent of the firms in Sweden and most of these firms are considered as SMEs. The interest of immigrant entrepreneurship within academic research and media has increased during the last years and different studies have shown what impact immigrant entrepreneurs have on the Swedish society and how much they contribute to the Swedish economical growth and employment. A study done by Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (2010a) showed that immigrant entrepreneurs tend to have a more positive attitude towards firm growth than native entrepreneurs. Although immigrant entrepreneurs have a positive attitude towards firm growth there are some barriers to firm growth that they face which in return can prevent or slow down the firm growth. Strategies are important since they allow firms to achieve firm growth and business goals.    The aim of our study is to increase the understanding of strategies that immigrant entrepreneurs’ develop in order to achieve firm growth. Based on one previous study conducted by SCB (Efendic et al., 2012) studying firm growth and immigrant entrepreneurship, we have managed to identify a research gap that needs to be fulfilled. This thesis will contribute will relevant knowledge and data for entrepreneurs as well as individuals to get a deeper understanding of how immigrant entrepreneurs work in order to reach firm growth. The data collection and analysis of the research allowed us to be able to answer the research question; “How do immigrant entrepreneurs in Sweden develop strategies in order to reach firm growth in their business?” To carry on with the study and collect relevant data for the research, we took the direction of abductive approach with a qualitative research strategy.   The interviews and empirical findings consist of six different immigrant entrepreneurs based in Sweden. From the findings, the authors came across different strategies that are commonly used by immigrant entrepreneurs. Furthermore, internal and external factors and barriers provided in the literature also influenced the firm growth. It was really interesting to see that many of the most common prejudices that exist within immigrant entrepreneurship were false in this study. This is proved since none of the immigrant entrepreneurs limit their markets to the ethnical groups and most of the firms did not use the personal network in terms of family and friends when building up the staff base. Outsourcing was a strategy that used within many of the firms in order to continuously to reach firm growth. It was also interesting to see that the personal history of the entrepreneur had a huge impact on the firm growth and the business goals.