Forms of capital and the creation of jobs by immigrant-owned businesses in southern Africa

Abstract

This study explores the relationships that human, economic and social capital may have with the creation of employment in small businesses that belong to African immigrants. Based on a cross-country approach, the study utilized self-administered questionnaires to collect data in a cross-sectional manner from 829 respondents in some states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Results obtained from the analysis of the data revealed that certain variables in the triumvirate of human, economic and social capitals displayed statistically significant relationships with employment creation. Specifically, among the studied variables, only management skills, educational achievement, business support services and language proficiency correlated positively with employment creation. Consequently, Governments, African-immigrant entrepreneurs and other interested stakeholders may need to invest in the improvement of these specific components of human, economic and social capital bases of entrepreneurs for the touted benefit of employment creation to materialize.