How do Immigrant Family Businesses Achieve Global Expansion? An Embeddedness Perspective

Academy of Management Discoveries, 2022

57 Pages Posted: 28 Mar 2022

See all articles by Meena Chavan

Meena Chavan

Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School

Francesco Chirico

Jonkoping University - Jonkoping International Business School (JIBS); Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School

Lucy Taksa

Deakin Business School

Muhammad Aftab Alam

Independent

Date Written: February 3, 2022

Abstract

Extant literature on immigrant family businesses (IFBs) refers to the vital role of embeddedness in their success. Yet, little is known about how embeddedness evolves from family to global and how it helps IFBs to establish themselves in a host country, survive the related challenges, and thrive in the international market. By drawing on the lived experience of 25 highly successful family business entrepreneurs in Australia, we develop an integrated process model and identify a four-phase chronology of IFBs’ success toward global expansion: arriving, establishing, expanding, and thriving. Further, this model links these transitory phases to the IFBs’ embeddedness that evolves from family to local, host-country, and global. Our findings suggest that while family embeddedness is critical over time, its scope is limited as the IFBs form new, more extensive networks toward the global market. IFBs act as boundary spanners, blending local and international resources to create value. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are shared in the concluding section.

Keywords: Immigrant family business; embeddedness; global expansion; process model

Suggested Citation

Chavan, Meena and Chirico, Francesco and Chirico, Francesco and Taksa, Lucy and Alam, Muhammad Aftab, How do Immigrant Family Businesses Achieve Global Expansion? An Embeddedness Perspective (February 3, 2022). Academy of Management Discoveries, 2022, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4024847

Meena Chavan

Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School ( email )

New South Wales 2109
Australia

Francesco Chirico (Contact Author)

Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School ( email )

New South Wales 2109
Australia

Jonkoping University - Jonkoping International Business School (JIBS) ( email )

Jönköping, 55111
Sweden

Lucy Taksa

Deakin Business School ( email )

Burwood, 3125
Australia
+61414345131 (Phone)

Muhammad Aftab Alam

Independent ( email )

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