University of Essex, United Kingdom
e-mail: yintan.fan@essex.ac.uk
The Identity and involvement in the ethnic, social network of Chinese entrepreneurs in Spain
Immigration studies have played an essential role in modernisation and globalisation. This presentation focuses on the part of Chinese migrant entrepreneurs and their social networks in the Spanish context. Chinese migrants in Spain have neither the language advantage as the migrants from Latin America nor the geographic affinity like migrants from North Africa. As the sixth largest migrant community in Spain, their economic activities have largely influenced local society. By introducing studies on ethnic entrepreneurship and social capital, this presentation uses the adaptation level, industrial preferences and ethnic network involvement as criteria for classifying immigrant entrepreneurs in empirical studies. This study applies semi-structured interviews with ten Chinese entrepreneurs in Madrid. It classifies the respondents into “beginner entrepreneurs”, “advanced entrepreneurs”, and “master entrepreneurs” based on the group profile, industry preference and ethnic network involvement, analysing their level of involvement with ethnic networks according to their level of social capital.
Bio:
Before PhD, I worked as a university lecturer, market researcher, and journalist. Various experiences and autoethnography are excellent ways to explore the world. Sociology offers me the possibility to understand both myself and society. When I started to read Max Weber’s book, I got attracted by this subject. I chose to study for my master study in Germany and I developed my main research interests in Economic Sociology, Sociology of Work and Migration Studies. Later I finished my Master’s Thesis on the informal labour market, German higher education and social adaptation among overseas Chinese students based on term-time employment of mine and other Chinese students. Since I have investigated the employees, why not start with employers and know more about employers’ organizations? Here I am in Essex and the PhD research topic is about ethnic entrepreneurship and migrant associations such as chambers of commerce.