COLOURFUL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN DUTCH CITIES: A REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

Entrepreneurship has clearly evolved as a critical element in the organization and restructuring of modern economies. It has been further fostered by the deregulation and privatization process in many Western countries. In addition, governments have acknowledged and started promoting the role of entrepreneurship in stimulating economic growth and development. In recent decades, we witness an increasing importance of migrant (or ethnic) entrepreneurs, in particular in big cities in the Western world. The aim of the present study is to provide both a contextual and empirical framework for assessing the business performance of migrant entrepreneurs in major cities in the Netherlands. The study is organized as follows. After an exposition of entrepreneurship and migrant entrepreneurship, the urban orientation of this new form of entrepreneurship is highlighted. Then the database and the methodology are presented. Next, the statistical findings are provided, followed by a concluding section.