Race, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship in Urban America (Sociology and Economics)

The authors have assembled a vast body of census data to address cutting-edge issues in entrepreneurship, immigration, urban studies, economic sociology, and social policy. In a novel research formulation, they compare the 272 largest metropolitan regions of the United States in respect to the entrepreneurship of various ethno-racial groups. Such a method permits them to vary the local economic environment and resource profiles of all major categories. Virtually all previously available data on these issues relied upon averages and overlooked inter-local variation within and among groups. Interpreting the voluminous data, which summarize the economic behavior of 100 million people, Ivan Light and Carolyn Rosenstein first explain resources theory (a supply-side formulation), providing a complete review of the large theoretical literature on immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship. They then address the other major theoretical concerns in the existing literature of social science, among them the interactionist theory of entrepreneurship and the possible effect of disadvantage upon entrepreneurship. The latter issue, an important and long-standing one, receives careful and decisive examination that eventuates in a theoretically elegant solution. A final chapter discusses social policy. The authors contrast liberal and conservative assumptions about entrepreneurship, faulting both. Locating entrepreneurship outside the usual framework of manpower policy, the authors make a case for a supply-side policy science of entrepreneurship that is neutral in political implication. Light and Rosenstein then suggest how policy might proceed to integrate two generations of social science research. Their closing discussion relates policy implications to the economic development of inner cities in America.

Business & Money

Light, Ivan

Rosenstein, Carolyn

Economics

de Gruyter

The authors have assembled a vast body of census data to address cutting-edge issues in entrepreneurship, immigration, urban studies, economic sociology, and social policy. In a novel research formulation, they compare the 272 largest metropolitan regions of the United States in respect to the entrepreneurship of various ethno-racial groups. Such a method permits them to vary the local economic environment and resource profiles of all major categories. Virtually all previously available data on these issues relied upon averages and overlooked inter-local variation within and among groups. Interpreting the voluminous data, which summarize the economic behavior of 100 million people, Ivan Light and Carolyn Rosenstein first explain resources theory (a supply-side formulation), providing a complete review of the large theoretical literature on immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship. They then address the other major theoretical concerns in the existing literature of social science, among them the interactionist theory of entrepreneurship and the possible effect of disadvantage upon entrepreneurship. The latter issue, an important and long-standing one, receives careful and decisive examination that eventuates in a theoretically elegant solution. A final chapter discusses social policy. The authors contrast liberal and conservative assumptions about entrepreneurship, faulting both. Locating entrepreneurship outside the usual framework of manpower policy, the authors make a case for a supply-side policy science of entrepreneurship that is neutral in political implication. Light and Rosenstein then suggest how policy might proceed to integrate two generations of social science research. Their closing discussion relates policy implications to the economic development of inner cities in America.

Routledge

Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965-1982

A decade in preparation, Immigrant Entrepreneurs offers the most comprehensive case study ever completed of the causes and consequences of immigrant business ownership. Koreans are the most entrepreneurial of America's new immigrants. By the mid-1970s Americans had already become aware that Korean immigrants were opening, buying, and operating numerous business enterprises in major cities. When Koreans flourished in small business, Americans wanted to know how immigrants could find lucrative business opportunities where native-born Americans could not. Somewhat later, when Korean-black conflicts surfaced in a number of cities, Americans also began to fear the implications for intergroup relations of immigrant entrepreneurs who start in the middle rather than at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy.Nowhere was immigrant enterprise more obvious or impressive than in Los Angeles, the world's largest Korean settlement outside of Korea and America's premier city of small business. Analyzing both the short-run and the long-run causes of Korean entrepreneurship, the authors explain why the Koreans could find, acquire, and operate small business firms more easily than could native-born residents. They also provide a context for distinguishing clashes of culture and clashes of interest which cause black-Korean tensions in cities, and for framing effective policies to minimize the tensions.

Bonacich, Edna

Management & Leadership

Univ. Of California Pr.

A decade in preparation, Immigrant Entrepreneurs offers the most comprehensive case study ever completed of the causes and consequences of immigrant business ownership. Koreans are the most entrepreneurial of America's new immigrants. By the mid-1970s Americans had already become aware that Korean immigrants were opening, buying, and operating numerous business enterprises in major cities. When Koreans flourished in small business, Americans wanted to know how immigrants could find lucrative business opportunities where native-born Americans could not. Somewhat later, when Korean-black conflicts surfaced in a number of cities, Americans also began to fear the implications for intergroup relations of immigrant entrepreneurs who start in the middle rather than at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. Nowhere was immigrant enterprise more obvious or impressive than in Los Angeles, the world's largest Korean settlement outside of Korea and America's premier city of small business. Analyzing both the short-run and the long-run causes of Korean entrepreneurship, the authors explain why the Koreans could find, acquire, and operate small business firms more easily than could native-born residents. They also provide a context for distinguishing clashes of culture and clashes of interest which cause black-Korean tensions in cities, and for framing effective policies to minimize the tensions.

University of California Press

Ethnic Enterprise in America: Business and Welfare among Chinese, Japanese, and Blacks

History

Americas

In response to the ongoing debate over the role social capital plays in the creation and continuation of a healthy civic culture, Community-Based Organizations in Contemporary Urban Society studies the close relationship that social capital shares with local context, social organization, and institutional structure. The book's timely analysis illuminates the institutional barriers currently affecting the mobilization of social capital and establishes a foundation for social and political reform in the future. All components of capital formation-including human, financial, and cultural capital-are identified and considered as they relate to the community development process, as well as how social capital relates to race, class, gender, and religion in urban society.
Community-Based Organizations in Contemporary Urban Society offers vital extensions to existing literature on social capital and allows the reader to consider this topic from multiple perspectives through its broad spectrum of interdisciplinary essays by sociologists, political scientists, and urban planners. The essays discuss important steps in the mobilization of social capital, as well as its role in microfinance programs, community development corporations, homeowners associations, religious institutions, and neighborhood associations. Individual chapters present an array of theoretical arguments, empirical analysis, and applied case studies that are of interest to academics, practitioners, and activists in the community development field.

Community-Based Organizations: The Intersection of Social Capital and Local Context in Contemporary Urban Society

Silverman, Robert Mark

Stoecker, Randy

Neff, Gina

Wayne State University Press

Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles

As international travel became cheaper and national economies grew more connected over the past thirty years, millions of people from the Third World emigrated to richer countries. A tenth of the population of Mexico relocated to the United States between 1980 and 2000. Globalization theorists claimed that reception cities could do nothing about this trend, since nations make immigration policy, not cities. In Deflecting Immigration, sociologist Ivan Light shows how Los Angeles reduced the sustained, high-volume influx of poor Latinos who settled there by deflecting a portion of the migration to other cities in the United States. In this manner, Los Angeles tamed globalization's local impact, and helped to nationalize what had been a regional immigration issue. Los Angeles deflected immigration elsewhere in two ways. First, the protracted network-driven settlement of Mexicans naturally drove up rents in Mexican neighborhoods while reducing immigrants' wages, rendering Los Angeles a less attractive place to settle. Second, as migration outstripped the city's capacity to absorb newcomers, Los Angeles gradually became poverty-intolerant. By enforcing existing industrial, occupational, and housing ordinances, Los Angeles shut down some unwanted sweatshops and reduced slums. Their loss reduced the metropolitan region's accessibility to poor immigrants without reducing its attractiveness to wealthier immigrants. Additionally, ordinances mandating that homes be built on minimum-sized plots of land with attached garages made home ownership in L.A.'s suburbs unaffordable for poor immigrants and prevented low-cost rental housing from being built. Local rules concerning home occupancy and yard maintenance also prevented poor immigrants from crowding together to share housing costs. Unable to find affordable housing or low-wage jobs, approximately one million Latinos were deflected from Los Angeles between 1980 and 2000. The realities of a new global economy are still unfolding, with uncertain consequences for the future of advanced societies, but mass migration from the Third World is unlikely to stop in the next generation. Deflecting Immigration offers a shrewd analysis of how America's largest immigrant destination independently managed the challenges posed by millions of poor immigrants and, in the process, helped focus attention on immigration as an issue of national importance.

Russell Sage Foundation

Review\nThis book begins by defining market capitalism, noting that it is not as old as humanity and that capitalism as it is known today coincided with the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther. Throughout the book Light (emer., Univ. of California, Los Angeles.) and Dana (Dalhousie Univ.) examine many contexts where morality and capitalism intersect and insinuate a symbiotic relationship whereby society tolerates immorality in business for the sake of economic advantage. The 10 chapters in part 2, which documents non-monetary resources, start with Max Weber’s cultural approach to capitalism before examining the Protestant Reformation, the Jewish Merchants of Venice, an Alaskan island, Pakistan, Korean immigrants, and Donald Trump. Part 2 then offers an explanation of how non-monetary resources can legitimate capitalism. Overall, the book provides interesting insight into the intersections of culture and capitalism within a well-researched historical context. Each chapter has its own endnotes, and there is a complete bibliography at the end of the book. The index contains key terms; however, a more comprehensive index would increase usability, though its narrowness in no way takes away from the substance of this intriguing work. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals. ― Choice Reviews\nThe world is clamoring for alternative models and understanding to unbridled capitalism. In this pathbreaking and deeply thoughtful book, Ivan Light and Leo Dana provide a broad, comprehensive, and compelling analysis reconciling entrepreneurship and capitalism with ethics and morality. This important book provides a blueprint for capitalism with a human face and heart. In an era burdened by crisis and cycles of devastating cynicism, this book offers a well considered optimistic future for capitalism, entrepreneurship, and humanity. -- David B. Audretsch, Distinguished Professor and the Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at Indiana University\nIn this exquisitely researched and eloquently argued volume, globally renowned scholars of entrepreneurship Ivan Light and Leo Paul Dana challenge the assertion that capitalism can only generate wealth through the anti-social, unrestricted, and amoral pursuit of profit. Mobilizing a diverse array of case studies, Entrepreneurs and Capitalism since Luther: Rediscovering the Moral Economy, convincingly argues that capitalism emerged from contexts that were collectively oriented, small in scale, and socially beneficial; not unlike those maintained by contemporary religious, ethnic, and moral communities. In generating this perspective, the authors present an alternative to the dystopia of neo-liberalism that is both compelling and hopeful. -- Steven J. Gold, Michigan State University\nAt today’s zenith of the resource-based view of the firm, Light and Dana provide an intellectual and historical gravitas for the approach, building a view that includes not only social, reputational and skill based resources but also the all-important work ethic, which defined the distinct contribution Reformation era thinking and action made possible for today’s models of market capitalism. Tying theory to examples where the mix of cultural and community factors differ, they span the globe and ages showing where capitalism can build or have trouble taking hold. The book’s unexpected insights and rich depictions of diverse cultures make for a fascinating and thought-provoking read. -- Jerome Katz, Brockhaus Chair of Entrepreneurship, Chaifetz School of Business, Saint Louis University\nIn Entrepreneurs and Capitalism since Luther: Rediscovering the Moral Economy, Ivan Light and Léo-Paul Dana study the history of business, capitalism, and entrepreneurship to examine the values of social and cultural capital. Six chapters evaluate case studies that illustrate contrasting relationships between social networks, vocational culture, and entrepreneurship. Lig

Entrepreneurs and Capitalism since Luther: Rediscovering the Moral Economy

Dana, Léo-Paul

Light professor emeritus of soc, Ivan

Lexington Books

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