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We investigate the labour regime of an agricultural sector in the China–Myanmar borderland. The extant literature on labour generally stresses the hyper-precarity of workers, especially migrant workers. Our case study of the sugar cane cutting industry in Dragon Village, Yunnan Province, suggests that contractors who hire workers from Myanmar are also in a state of hyper-precarity which is shaped by multiple layers of socio-economic and politico-institutional circumstances. We develop an analytic framework for investigating transnational labour contractor regimes, which highlights the strategies jointly adopted by contractors and workers to mitigate the hyper-precarity within which both parties are embedded. We find that contractors are in a hyper-precarious position due to limited micro-level transnational social networks to meet outpaced labour demand, unfavourable meso-level market conditions, and macro-level politico-institutional factors such as the added responsibilities of immigration management, a fast-evolving legal system, and military coups. We also find that contractors adopt strategies to control both workers’ labour process and everyday life, while workers use some counterstrategies to regain agency. Together, they stabilize the labour force for this industry despite their shared hyper-precarity.

Immigrant enterprises, especially those in the service sector of the urban economy, are largely gendered and seemingly localized. However, the intersection of gender and transnationalism is often overlooked in the research literature. To fill this gap, we draw on the literature of mixed embeddedness and transnationalism to advance an analytical framework of simultaneous embeddedness to explain the gendered pattern of immigrant entrepreneurship. We do so by taking an in-depth look at a female-dominant industry – Chinese-owned nail salons in New York City. Using data collected from face-to-face interviews and on-site observations in New York City, as well as archival records and media reports about labor-market dynamics in both the United States and China, we find that the development of Chinese-owned nail salons is shaped by contextual factors in both home and host countries beyond socioeconomic characteristics of individual entrepreneurs. Home-country factors in China include labor-force demographics, access to economic opportunities, and the gap between education and career aspiration among young women. These home-country factors are intertwined with changes in US immigration policy, local labor-market reception, and gender discrimination, which function to exacerbate the problem of labor shortage for Chinese-owned nail salons in New York City. We discuss the significance of simultaneous embeddedness and gender in understanding contemporary immigrant entrepreneurship.

This article investigates how global forces influence immigrant entrepreneurship. Research in the United States generally assumes that immigrant enterprises, especially those in the service sector of the urban economy, are largely low-end and highly localized. Our case study of Chinese-owned nail salons in New York City suggests that immigrant enterprises are predominantly transnational, shaped not only by local market conditions in the host country but also by multiple layers of socioeconomic and politico-institutional circumstances in the home country. We build on the ideas of mixed embeddedness and transnationalism to develop an analytic framework of simultaneous embeddedness that underscores the linkage between the local and the global. Using data collected from face-to-face interviews and on-site observations in New York City, as well as archival records of government policies and media reports in both the United States and China, we find that individual characteristics and home country interpersonal networks shape processes of adaptation and business formation in the host country. Moreover, the supply of business labor is influenced by three factors in China: (a) educational attainment among the younger generation, (b) job mismatch in the local labor market, and (c) economic opportunities. Finally, the Chinese government’s entrepreneurship promoting policy and relaxed control over studying abroad and tourism overseas, intertwined with U.S. immigration policy, exacerbate the problem of labor shortage for Chinese-owned nail salons in New York City.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on immigrant entrepreneurship since the mid-2000s to examine the changing trends, variations and theoretical advances in immigrant entrepreneurship in Western societies.Design/methodology/approachUsing the SocIndex and Proquest Business Premium databases, the authors conducted a literature review of about 100 peer-reviewed articles published since the mid-2000s. The authors critically assess the main research findings, identify key concepts and models that have been developed over the past decade, and offer new theoretical insight into the ever-changing global dynamics of immigrant entrepreneurship. Although the focus is on the USA, the authors also include some seminal research based in other Western countries of immigrant reception.FindingsBased on a critical review of existing research that has been published between 2004 and the present, the authors highlight main trends and variations of the entrepreneurial endeavors among diasporic migrants, address the emerging forces shaping immigrant entrepreneurship, highlight theoretical advances in the field of entrepreneurship studies, and suggest new directions for future research. The authors note that the changing trends and ethnonational variations are caused not only by unequal access to human capital, social capital, financial capital, and cross-border venture capital on the part of individual entrepreneurs, but also by differences in broader structural circumstances in the home country and/or host country and interaction between national/local and transnational/global forces. The authors discuss new theoretical advances, identify gaps and raise questions for future research.Originality/valueThe review offers important insight into the ever-changing local and global dynamics of immigrant entrepreneurship and broadens the established conceptual and theoretical models in the sociology of immigrant/ethnic entrepreneurship.