Human capital resources creation and utilization in ethnic minority microbusinesses: The construction of a culture-induced entrepreneurship model

Abstract

We explored and found that a set of key resources, that we call human capital resources, play an important role in ethnic minority microbusinesses in an ethnic majority social and economic space. We have also found that these key resources are developed and maintained within the coethnic niche economic space shaped by coethnic cultural value systems. Building on qualitative interview data and drawing on Bourdieu’s forms of capital and the resource-based view of the firm, our study presents a novel microentrepreneurship model that we call the culture-induced entrepreneurship model. Overall, our model provides insights into how ethnic minority culture informs the creation of a set of human capital resources and how these key resources contribute to business performance in regional ethnic minority microbusinesses. Our model also shows relationships between these key human capital resources.