Local Roots, Global ties: Harnessing diaspora entrepreneurship for sustainable international business development in Sweden

Sammanfattning

Aim: This study investigates factors influencing the successful harnessing of diaspora entrepreneurship for sustainable international business in Sweden. It examines how entrepreneurs navigate the Swedish institutional landscape and provides strategic recommendations for policymakers to better integrate transnational economic resources. Methodology: Adopting a qualitative, interpretivist approach, the research utilized semi-structured interviews with ten (n=10) diaspora entrepreneurs. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and the Mixed Embeddedness (ME) framework, categorizing structural, relational, and cultural forms of integration. Findings & Conclusion: Results show that while entrepreneurs leverage "Transnational Arbitrage" and co-ethnic networks to create opportunities, growth is obstructed by a lack of structural embeddedness. The "Institutional Language Barrier" emerged as the primary dimension of exclusion. Consequently, entrepreneurs often utilize business acquisitions to "borrow" structural legitimacy. Sustainability is viewed holistically, prioritizing stability and community contribution over aggressive scaling. The study concludes that the Swedish institutional environment remains structurally rigid, necessitating reform to move toward active integration. Contributions & Future Research: Theoretically, this study identifies institutional language as a core exclusionary factor and introduces the concept of "borrowed embeddedness." Practically, it offers a roadmap for language-access reforms and advises financial institutions to recognize transnational relational capital. While limited by a small, single-site sample, future research should employ longitudinal designs to compare "borrowed" versus "de novo" venture performance and investigate regional variations in English-language institutional support. Keywords: Diaspora Entrepreneurship (DE), Transnational Entrepreneurship (TE), Mixed Embeddedness (ME), Sustainable Business Practices, Sweden (Local Context), Structural Embeddedness, Relational Embeddedness, Institutional Language Barrier, Transnational Arbitrage, Acquisition and Partnership.