From 'Break out' to 'Breakthrough': Successful Market Strategies of Immigrant Entrepreneurs in the UK‪.‬

INTRODUCTION It is, by now, widely acknowledged that ethnic minority immigrants have a high propensity towards entrepreneurship and contribute positively to economic development. Recent studies have highlighted the significant contribution made by immigrant entrepreneurs from India, China, and other countries, to innovation and job creation in the US (Anderson & Platzer, 2006; Fairlie, 2008; Wadhwa, Saxenian, Rissing, & Gereffi, 2008). Ethnic minority entrepreneurs, many of whom are immigrants, are overrepresented among the population of entrepreneurs in the Netherlands (Kloosterman, 2003) and the UK (Levie, 2007). Although entrepreneurship has been the route to upward economic and social mobility for some ethnic minority immigrant entrepreneurs, for others it has been an economic dead end (Barrett et al., 2001). Much of the literature on ethnic minority immigrant business owners, especially in Europe, focuses on the disadvantages faced by them and the small average size of the firms they own, and neglects to analyze how and why a significant number of ethnic minority immigrant entrepreneurs have succeeded in expanding their businesses. In recent years, the term 'break out' has been used in the context of ethnic entrepreneurs who break with the exclusive reliance on ethnic markets (Ram & Jones, 1998). However, there are few scholarly accounts of the process of 'break out', the nature of marketing strategies developed by successful immigrant entrepreneurs and the underlying factors that enable some immigrant entrepreneurs to implement these strategies and overcome existing market barriers.