engleski

Immigrant entrepreneurship in Croatia: Exploring its potential, (rising) barriers and integration patterns

This paper investigates the socio-institutional constraints to immigrant entrepreneurship in post-communist countries of Balkans. We focus on Croatian case, a country in which immigrant population is still limited, but due to recent EU membership it is expected to increase in a nearest future. Yet, only 11% of Croatian citizens see immigration more of an opportunity than a problem and only 40% of Croatian citizens believe that immigrants have an overall positive impact on the national economy (Eurobarometer, 2018). These data refer to the perception of non-EU immigrants. Furthermore, in Croatia only 1, 3% of the population are non- nationals (Eurostat, 2019). Still, Croatian citizens are the least informed in the EU on the immigration-related issues – 81% of them consider themselves insufficiently informed on the immigration and integration related matters (Eurobarometer, 2018). General public usually links the immigrant entrepreneurship with refugee and politically- driven migration issues and their potential burden for the welfare state. In addition, policy makers still do not seem to recognise the importance of foreign entrepreneurs and the dominant public discourse on the migration- related issues is mostly election-driven. Therefore, our study is one of the first papers dealing with the issue of immigrant entrepreneurs in Croatia. The chief aim of our research project is exploratory: we conduct an analysis of socio-institutional constraints to immigrant entrepreneurship in Croatia. We conduct a qualitative study based on semi- structured interviews with immigrant entrepreneurs and relevant stakeholders (including NGOs and public administration representatives) supplemented by statistical data from a recent GEM survey. The sample included total of six (coded as IN1, IN2, IN3, IN4, IN5 and IN6) institutional representatives (NGOs, think tanks, employers’ associations) and ten entrepreneurs (coded as EU or nonEU 1- 10). Those interviews were conducted in the period between January and mid-August 2019 personally in Zagreb or over the phone. The interviews were carried out in English and lasted 45 minutes on average. Main topics of the interview were mostly chronologically sequenced around two distinctive stages of migration (Castles & Miller, 2009: 20-21): first, the immigration determinants and patterns ; and second, the integration processes and perspectives. This necessarily leads to the analysis of interaction of macro- and micro- structures, and their intermediate mechanisms named ‘meso-structures’, as any migratory movement is a result of it (Castles et al, 2014: 26-27). In line with the purpose of this research, the afore-stated (im)migration stages were focused on entrepreneurship-related issues. In sum, the research mostly relies on an ‘extended’ functionalist approach as it seeks to identify the push and pull factors and related issues. Our findings demonstrate a growing potential of immigrant entrepreneurship in Croatia, but also persistent barriers connected both with formal and informal institutions. Interestingly, the informal institutions often present even bigger obstacle for the entrepreneurs from the less developed, non-European countries. The ignorance combined with very limited openness towards other ethnic groups discourages their entrepreneurial initiatives. Our study, albeit having an explorative character, contributes to the growing strand of literature in post- communist economies of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe and provides important policy recommendations for practitioners and administrative units responsible for international migration governance. Moreover, we offer suggestions for further research on immigrant entrepreneurship in the Balkans region and in Croatia in particular.

imigrantsko poduzetništvo ; migracije ; inozemni poduzetnici ; integracijaa

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