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How far does new migrant enterprise represent a departure from traditional ethnic minority entrepreneurship in the UK? This paper draws on a qualitative survey of 165 new migrants in the UK to address this question. New migrants to the UK are emblematic of ‘super-diversity’, which some believe heralds a significant departure from previous forms of migration. The extent to which this process has a substantive impact on the kinds of businesses that new migrants run is rarely considered. It is argued that migrant business, ‘new’ and ‘old’, is structurally disadvantaged and underpinned by mixed embeddedness. This can be applied to demonstrate that new migrants are essentially subject to the same structural handicaps as their forerunners.

Growing population diversity, referred to as ‘super-diversity’, has transformed the UK landscape, yet many areas of social science and policy appear reluctant to engage with the phenomenon. This article examines the ‘research–policy’ nexus as it applies one area of super-diversity: that is, businesses run by new migrants. Based on a year-long collaboration with a regional business support intermediary, the study investigate how policymakers, working with academics, handle the complexities that attend super-diversity in relation to enterprise. The study adopts an ‘engaged scholarship’ approach comprising participant observation and interviews with community-based intermediaries and business owners from 22 new migrant communities. It finds that policymakers and practitioners struggle to cope with the complexities that attend the processes of super-diversity. The danger of this is a perpetuation of a form of ‘ethnic managerialism’. However, by working collaboratively, academics and practitioners can deploy complementary bodies of knowledge to develop constructive intervention to support new migrant businesses.

This article examines the experiences of small ethnic minority-owned businesses (EMBs) engaged in supply chain relationships with large purchasing organizations (LPOs). Working with the complementary frameworks of Edwards et al. (2006) and Kloosterman et al. (1999), we assess the effects on the internal dynamics of EMB firms of a move into the LPO supply chain. Drawing on case study evidence from three sectors – business services, information and communication technology (ICT) and food manufacture - we focus on the experiences of workers, who have been neglected in extant debates. We find that move to supply LPOs is extremely challenging for EMBs. Although workers express satisfaction with working relationships, the power of LPOs contributes to a tightening of control over practices like recruitment, work organization and work hours.

This paper builds upon a series of studies that have identified the comparatively low uptake of ICT amongst EMBs ( Ram and Smallbone, 1999 ; Foley and Ram 2002 ; Allinson et al., 2004 ). Existing studies have only tentatively considered the causal factors for this lower adoption rate in comparison to non-EMBs. Within the context of a pilot study, aiming to understand ICT adoption amongst EMBs, an action research approach is adopted as a means of influencing, evaluating and underpinning ICT adoption ( Beckinsale and Ram, 2006 ). The approach is methodologically distinctive in its utilization of action research with a critical realist approach as a means of policy evaluation; this is conducive to ‘policy learning’, and the understanding of causal mechanisms in the EMBs. Actors involved in the implementation were interviewed, as well as the business owners themselves. Another distinguishing feature is the application of Yap et al.’s (1992) schema to identify causal mechanisms, to examine actions and experiences and to understand the impact on the EMBs studied. The findings highlight the complex interaction and relationships of internal and external factors in shaping approaches to ICT implementation. Factors such as size, strategy and business age are germane but so too, albeit to a lesser degree, are cultural influences such as involvement in co-ethnic networks. Significantly, changes to particular causal mechanisms such as business support altered adoption and implementation of ICT. Distinct issues for Chinese and Asian-owned business and potentially more broadly EMBs are identified providing a framework for other EMBs.