SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This paper explored the relationship between the entrepreneurship and the local innovation creation of migrant entrepreneurs, focusing on the Jem Group, a company that has existed in the United Kingdom for 50 years, and the life of Tetsuro Hama, a Japanese migrant entrepreneur and its founder. Building on author’s previous study and incorporating the case of Mr Hama, this paper examined the skills involved in entrepreneurs’ local innovation creation in overseas markets, as well as how skill acquisition (entrepreneurial learning) relates to communities. Furthermore, the paper sheds light on what past experiences and opportunities (and systems) help to develop entrepreneurship (behavioural traits) required for long-term management and local innovation in overseas markets, probing into concrete links between the two. This paper confirmed that the new value for local innovation can be created by joining resources from two different countries. Moreover, the diversification in growing industries can lead to improved business scale and productivity by expanding the scope from the target demographic, from compatriots only to include locals, which can also lead to innovations in organisational management and sales promotion. However, to generalise local innovation by migrant entrepreneurs, it is necessary to compare the differences and similarities with the cases of non-Japanese migrant entrepreneurs, which could point to the direction of further research. Moreover, by adding cross-sectional studies that broaden the scope from the same industry to other industries, we can advance the theorisation of migrant entrepreneurs’ innovation strategies. Finally, to enhance the probability of this research field, it may be effective to include statistical verification considering the findings presented in this paper.