Noneconomic Dimensions of Migrants’ Adaptation to the Labor Market: Migrant Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Cultures during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Noneconomic Dimensions of Migrants’ Adaptation to the Labor Market: Migrant Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Cultures during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Summary/Abstract: This article explores the interactions of migrant Polish business owners with the new entrepreneurial culture in their host country (the UK). The research question of the article concerns how migrant business owners experience the entrepreneurial culture of their host society and how this process reflects noneconomic aspects of labor market adaptation. In the theoretical dimension, the aim is to develop a perspective of examining the labor market adaptation of migrants as a cultural process which reflects certain values and internalized or institutionalized patterns of thinking and acting (Hofstede 2005). The study examines cross-cultural encounters in three interconnected areas: entrepreneurs’ relations with the state, their nteractions with other business people, and their interactions with their employees. International mobility provides individuals with the potential to modify their habits and beliefs in the new structural settings and socio-cultural environment of their activities. Socioeconomic crises are moments of trial for migrants, highlighting the challenges of adaptation but also clarifying differences in values and behaviors. The COVID-19 pandemic perpetuated the migrants’ view of the host country as an entrepreneurship-friendly state and enhanced their vision of the host’s entrepreneurial culture as one based on a high level of trust in regard to business owners. The analysis is based on the qualitative method (53 interviews with Polish migrant entrepreneurs).

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