Human beings are described by many spiritual traditions as ‘blind’ or ‘asleep’ or ‘in a dream.’ These terms refers to the limited attenuated state of consciousness of most human beings caught up in patterns of conditioned thought, feeling and perception, which prevent the development of our latent, higher spiritual possibilities. In the words of Idries Shah: “Man, like a sleepwalker who suddenly ‘comes to’ on some lonely road has in general no correct idea as to his origins or his destiny.” In some religious traditions, such as Christianity and Islam, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness. Other traditions use similar metaphors to describe the spiritual condition of humanity:

The Human Condition.

The Rise of the Creative Class

This paper sets out to explore contexts for entrepreneurship, illustrating how a contextualized view of entrepreneurship contributes to our understanding of the phenomenon. There is growing recognition in entrepreneurship research that economic behavior can be better understood within its historical, temporal, institutional, spatial, and social contexts, as these contexts provide individuals with opportunities and set boundaries for their actions. Context can be an asset and a liability for the nature and extent of entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurship can also impact contexts. The paper argues that context is important for understanding when, how, and why entrepreneurship happens and who becomes involved. Exploring the multiplicity of contexts and their impact on entrepreneurship, it identifies challenges researchers face in contextualizing entrepreneurship theory and offers possible ways forward.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/j_1540-6520_2010_00427_x_wml.pdf?abstractid=1784106&mirid=2

Contextualizing Entrepreneurship—Conceptual Challenges and Ways Forward:

The Future of the Capitalist State

The Creative City is now a classic and has been republished many times. It is an ambitious book and a clarion call for imaginative action in running urban life. It seeks to inspire people to think, plan and act imaginatively in the city and to get an ideas factory going that turns urban innovations into reality. Its aim is to make readers feel: ‘I can do that too’ and to spread confidence that creative and innovative solutions to urban problems are feasible however bad they may seem at first sight.

The creative city: A toolkit for urban innovators

Immigrants from non-industrialized countries have become part and parcel of the social fabric of many advanced urban economies, including those in the Netherlands. A significant number of these migrants opt for setting up shop themselves. Lacking access to large financial resources and mostly lacking in educational qualifications, they are funnelled towards the lower end of the opportunity structure of these urban economies. To survive in these cut-throat markets, many migrant entrepreneurs revert to informal economic activities that are strongly dependent on specific social networks - mostly consisting of co-ethnics - to sustain these activities on a more permanent basis. To understand the social position of these migrant entrepreneurs and their chances of upward social mobility, one has to look beyond these co-ethnic networks and focus on their insertion in the wider society in terms of customers, suppliers and various kinds of business organizations. To deal with this latter type of insertion, we propose the use of a more comprehensive concept of mixed embeddedness that aims at incorporating both the co-ethnic social networks as well as the linkages (or lack of linkages) between migrant entrepreneurs and the economic and institutional context of the host society. We illustrate this concept by presenting a case study of Islamic butchers in the Netherlands. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1999.

Mixed embeddedness: (in)formal economic activities and immigrant businesses in the Netherlands

Immigrants from non-industrialized countries have become part and parcel of the social fabric of many advanced urban economies, including those in the Netherlands. A significant number of these migrants opt for setting up shop themselves. Lacking access to large financial resources and mostly lacking in educational qualifications, they are funnelled towards the lower end of the opportunity structure of these urban economies. To survive in these cut-throat markets, many migrant entrepreneurs revert to informal economic activities that are strongly dependent on specific social networks – mostly consisting of co-ethnics – to sustain these activities on a more permanent basis. To understand the social position of these migrant entrepreneurs and their chances of upward social mobility, one has to look beyond these co-ethnic networks and focus on their insertion in the wider society in terms of customers, suppliers and various kinds of business organizations. To deal with this latter type of insertion, we propose the use of a more comprehensive concept of mixed embeddedness that aims at incorporating both the co-ethnic social networks as well as the linkages (or lack of linkages) between migrant entrepreneurs and the economic and institutional context of the host society. We illustrate this concept by presenting a case study of Islamic butchers in the Netherlands.



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Les immigrants des pays pas industrialises sont devenus une part integrale du tissu social de nombreuses economies urbaines developpees, y compris celles des Pays-Bas. Un nombre significatif de migrants choisissent de s’etablir a leur compte. N’ayant pas acces a des ressources financieres importantes et ayant peu de qualifications academiques, ils sont entraines vers le bas des structures de debouches de ces economies. Pour survivre dans ces economies tres dures, beaucoup d’entrepreneurs immigrants retournent aux activites economiques informelles qui dependent fortement des reseaux sociaux specifiques – principalement co-ethniques – pour soutenir ces activites de facon plus permanente. Afin de comprendre la position sociale de ces migrants entrepreneurs et leurs possibilites de mobilite sociale vers le haut, il faut regarder plus loin que ces reseaux co-ethniques et explorer leur insertion dans la societe en general par rapport aux clients, fournisseurs et divers types d’organisation commerciales. Pour traiter de ce type d’insertion, nous proposons d’utiliser un concept d’incorporation melangee plus comprehensif qui a pour but d’integrer a la fois les reseaux sociaux co-ethniques et les liens (ou manque de liens) entre les migrants entrepreneurs et le contexte economique et institutionnel de la societe d’acceuil. Nous illustrons ce concept par un cas d’etude de bouchers islamiques aux Pays-Bas.

Mixed Embeddedness: (In)formal Economic Activities and Immigrant Businesses in the Netherlands

This paper introduces the JEMS special issue on immigrant entrepreneurship and mixed embeddedness. The special issue has grown out of an EC-funded programme of networking research entitled 'Working on the Fringes: Immigrant Businesses, Economic Integration and Informal Practices'. Our opening paper provides a contextual overview for the case-study papers which follow. We pay particular attention to the mixed-embeddedness thesis and especially focus on the demand side of the opportunity structures framework which confronts potential immigrant entrepreneurs. We propose a three-level strategy for analysing the opportunity structure and its underlying dynamics, based on national, urban/regional and neighbourhood levels of comparison. In the nal part of the paper, we identify several possible future lines of research.

Immigrant entrepreneurs in advanced economies: Mixed embeddedness further explored

Focuses on the polycentric urban region concept of city planning. Overview of the concept; Factors affecting the growth of cities and towns; Demise of the basic monocentric model at an intraurban level

The polycentric urban region: towards a research agenda.

In this article, an innovative analytical framework for the analysis of (migrant) entrepreneurship is presented. The approach combines the micro-level of the individual entrepreneur (with his or her resources), with the meso-level of the local opportunity structure and links the latter, in more loose way, to the macro-institutional framework. This way, insights on the necessary resources of an (aspiring/nascent) entrepreneur with views on opportunity structures can be combined. A simple typology of the opportunity structure is presented which distinguishes between different kind of openings based, on the one hand, on differences in entry barriers (in terms of human capital), and, on the other, on their dynamics (growing or stagnating). This comprehensive analytical framework relates (shifts in) opportunities, resources and outcomes of immigrant entrepreneurship in a systematic way.

Robert C. Kloosterman

Papers

Mixed embeddedness: (in)formal economic activities and immigrant businesses in the Netherlands

Mixed Embeddedness: (In)formal Economic Activities and Immigrant Businesses in the Netherlands

Immigrant entrepreneurs in advanced economies: Mixed embeddedness further explored

The polycentric urban region: towards a research agenda.

Matching opportunities with resources: A framework for analysing (migrant) entrepreneurship from a mixed embeddedness perspective