Understanding Immigrants' Initiatives in the New Economy: The Case of Western Canada‪.‬

ABSTRACT/RESUME In the trans-Pacific region, new immigrants as professionals and entrepreneurs can be understood as pursuing innovative initiatives. They are aided by a specific employment and immigration market that emerged with the growth of international high-tech production and service locations. They are also linked in trans-Pacific social spaces where Canadian immigration policy contributes to the provision of flexible citizenship. This flexibility is used to case the exchange of high-tech goods, innovations, and services and to foster the trans-Pacific accumulation of economic, social, and cultural capital. New transnational Chinese and Indian immigrants are active in business and trade associations that link high technology sectors in Asian cities with those in western Canada, such as those in Vancouver and Calgary. This research note reviews not only high-tech associations and selected cases of ethnic/immigrant entrepreneurship in Vancouver's and Calgary's high-tech sectors but also provides the basis for a western Canadian research agenda in examining immigrants' initiatives in the new economy.