Coping ability and employment growth in African immigrant-owned small businesses in Southern Africa

Abstract

Despite the plethora of challenges faced by immigrant-owned businesses, there are still some that are performing well and contributing to employment growth in their respective host nations. Unfortunately, research tends to be skewed towards the examination of these challenges, while scant attention is paid to critical antecedents of the coping ability of immigrant entrepreneurs and employment growth in their businesses. This empirical quantitative study, is a cross-country survey spanning South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland. It aims to establish the extent to which the independent variables of financial bootstrapping, access to business services and business location play contributory roles in the coping ability of African immigrant entrepreneurs. It also explores the possibility of a relationship between these independent variables and employment growth. The findings reveal that all of the independent variables were considered as important contributors to the coping ability of African immigrant entrepreneurs though financial bootstrapping was ranked highest. However, regression analysis results indicate that a statistically significant relationship was only evident for the hypothesized relationship between access to business services and employment growth. This finding has important practical implications for stakeholders who are committed to supporting African immigrant entrepreneurship endeavours in the Southern Africa region.