At the outset of research
Entrepreneurship has long been a key player in the changing of Western societies by giving ‘direction’ to demand and ‘form’ to supply thus influencing ideas, values and aspirations constituting any given human togetherness. As Europe finds itself amid another rapid transformation of its technological, economic and political landscape in the first quarter of the 21st century, practices and policies of inclusive entrepreneurship are of significance beyond the economic sphere.
Gender gap is a persistent characteristic of the entrepreneurial milieu across the Nordic countries (1). Aligning with this trend, immigrant female entrepreneurship has been a topic receiving scant attention from the academic and policy outlets thus is full of knowledge gaps (2). Noting that ‘gender equality’ is an idea dear and integral to the Nordic collective imagination (3), the low rates of female immigrant entrepreneurial activity within the region cannot be explained only by the economic formulas or the resource-focused explanatory mechanisms.
A sociological examination of female immigrant entrepreneurship is often by design attentive to multiple axes of difference such as gender, ethnicity and class. It is, however, equally important to recognise the specific, time and place contingent sets of social relations which come to shape immigrant-mainstream dynamics. If we do not want to reduce the difference question to “lifestyle distinctions” which are often spelled out in relation to entrepreneurial tendencies, it is essential to begin with questions on the given organisation of space and social relations.
Hence, at the outset of this research is asked:
What are the characteristics of the given human togetherness?
Written by: Yasemin Kontkanen, DSocSci, UEFConnect
References:
- OECD/European Commission (2023), The Missing Entrepreneurs 2023: Policies for Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/230efc78-en.
- Kontkanen, Y. & Yeröz, H. (forthcoming/2025). Contextualising Diversity: A Narrative Review of the Nordic Research on Migrant Women’s Entrepreneurship. In S. Yamamura & P. Lassalle (Eds.) Research Handbook on Entrepreneurship and Diversity. Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Mulinari, D., Keskinen, S., Irni, K., & Tuori, S. (2009). Introduction: Postcolonialism and the Nordic Models of Welfare and Gender. In S. Keskinen, S. Tuori, S. Irni, & D. Mulinari (Eds.), Complying with Colonialism: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Nordic Region (pp. 1-16). Ashgate. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315573212