Immigrant entrepreneurship : the case of Lithuanian immigrant entrepreneursin rural East of England

Abstract: The interplay of migration and entrepreneurship has been shifted to a significant research area by the continuous increase of immigrants as a share in the population of countries, that are considered to be having a high attractiveness towards migrants. The United Kingdom has been pronounced as one of the countries receiving the biggest flows of immigrants. It has led to increasing immigrant self-employment, particularly in the areas with a high immigrant concentration. Considerable numbers of Lithuanian immigrants have established themselves in rural areas in the East of England region, and some of them eventually got engaged in entrepreneurial activities. Despite the country's business-friendly environment, immigrant entrepreneurs still encounter challenges that significantly constraint their business, both establishment and performance. Challenges and constraints that immigrant entrepreneurs face in a host country are caused by the interplay of various contexts such as social, economic, cultural, institutional, etc. that immigrant entrepreneurs are embedded in. Furthermore, entrepreneurship in a rural context is respectively associated with even more obstacles. There are less developed and available local services and infrastructure compared to urban areas, long distances, which eventually lead to limited access to essential resources and capital, necessary for a viable business. In this thesis, I analyse Lithuanian immigrant entrepreneurship in the UK and contexts mentioned above, which impact immigrant business performance and can be perceived as push and pull factors. Through semi-structured interviews with Lithuanian immigrant entrepreneurs, I explore the perceptions of Lithuanian immigrants' experience in their entrepreneurial activities based in the East of England region through the lens of mixed embeddedness concept. More specifically, I investigate different social, economic, and institutional contexts that Lithuanian immigrants are embedded in. In order to illustrate the mixed embeddedness concept, which aims to incorporate co‐ethnic social networks and links between immigrant entrepreneurs and the economic and institutional context in the host society, I present a case study of Lithuanian immigrant entrepreneurs in rural East of England. The research study was conducted during the pre- Brexit period when immigration to the UK was seen as one of the central factors in the Brexit debate.