Ghanaian entrepreneurship First-generation Ghanaian entrepreneurs in the Netherlands

In this dissertation, a closer look is taken at the first-generation Ghanaian immigrant entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. This research focuses primarily on the micro level, namely the entrepreneurs and the resources they possess which enable them to start their own businesses. It follows the ‘mixed embeddedness’ approach which presents an interplay of the characteristics of the individual entrepreneur and the opportunity structure as well as the institutional framework. First, this dissertation addresses the question of how first-generation Ghanaian immigrant entrepreneurs have used their human capital to set up their businesses in the Netherlands. Secondly, the sources of finance (formal and informal) are examined. Thirdly, the informal and the formal networks in which first-generation Ghanaian immigrant entrepreneurs are embedded are investigated: how do they deploy their social capital? More generally, this dissertation attempts to discover whether Ghanaians have benefitted from the era of de-industrialisation by entering into new market segments and escaping from the ‘traditional’ low-end activities which have lower access barriers and require fewer skills.
It turns out that Ghanaian entrepreneurs, notwithstanding being relatively well-endowed in terms of human capital (in terms of education, entrepreneurial experience and fluency in Dutch), still tend to end up in the lower segments of markets. The respondents’ over-reliance on their pre-migration human capital and ethnic homogeneous social capital as well as the opaqueness of the opportunity structure limited their potential for breaking out to mainstream markets.