Start-Up Experiences of Latino Business Owners in Lansing and Saginaw, Michigan
Abstract
The paper presents findings from qualitative data gleaned from formal interviews with 14 business owners from the Start-Up Experiences of Latino/a Business Owners in Michigan study conducted by the Julian Samora Research Institute in 2011 and 2012. The majority of respondents were men over the age of 51 with at least some postsecondary education who were born in the United States; half of the respondents were born in Michigan. For Latino/a business owners in Lansing and Saginaw, MI, family influences decisions to venture into business ownership both in terms of intrinsic motivation and through a history of business ownership. Consistent with earlier research (Martinez et al., 2011), the majority of business owners in our sample used either informal funds or a combination of formal and informal funds to start their business endeavors. Respondents acknowledged that discrimination, prejudice, and exclusion, while perhaps less severe than in past decades, remain inherent in Latino business start-up experiences. Our research begins to fill the gap of knowledge on how Latinos and Latinas are starting and building businesses. www.cambio.missouri.edu/Library/ Keywords: immigrant entrepreneurship, Latino businesses, business ownership
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