Start-Up and Growth of Immigrant Small Businesses: The Impact of Social and Human Capital

Networks, and their resulting social capital, can be key determinants of successful business start-up for immigrant entrepreneurs. Historically, immigrants have settled in communities characterized by networks that consist of strong ties. Network theory suggests that in addition to strong ties, success also requires the development of weak ties. In this paper, we develop a model of the relationships between strong and weak ties, and the likelihood of a business start-up and its subsequent growth. We also specifically consider the moderating effect of the entrepreneur's human capital in these relationships. Based on this model, we derive a number of theoretical propositions.