Paper Seminar: Close but far away

The Paper Seminar series is a perfect opportunity to get up to speed with the entrepreneurship research scene and meet and greet your fellow researchers.

We follow the traditional approach with 30-45 minutes of presentation, followed by comments and discussion.

Paper Abstract

All over the world, Silicon Valley is known for its many high-tech companies, its successful start-ups and its entrepreneuriality. The area is often presented as a raw model through its cooperative industrial system and through its way of embracing immigrants, both as entrepreneurs and as intrapreneurs. However, little is known about entrepreneurs in the area outside of high tech-industries; if, and how, these are connected to the network of entrepreneurial activities that the area is known for.

This paper presents the results of a comparative qualitative study carried out among two groups of immigrant entrepreneurs in and around Palo Alto, CA: entrepreneurs from the Nordic countries (10 people) and entrepreneurs from Latin- and South America (5 people). Geographically, the Nordic entrepreneurs live and work west of Highway 101, in Palo Alto and adjacent communities, whereas the Hispanic entrepreneurs live east of the highway, in East Palo Alto – an area known for it’s high criminality – and only go west of the highway to work.

The study shows that there are similarities as well as differences between the two groups. Both groups for example have and make use of social networks in order to set up their businesses. But despite the geographical proximity of these two groups, they live in different worlds; worlds that connect only at times, for example when the Hispanic entrepreneurs deliver a service to the Nordic Entrepreneurs on the other side of the highway. Businesswise, the different networks of the Nordic and the Hispanic entrepreneurs never connect, which means that experiences and learning as well as contacts are never shared. Furthermore, it means that certain immigrant groups are excluded from the entrepreneurial network for which Silicon Valley is known.

Biography

Anette Hallin is a visiting scholar at the Gothenburg Research Institute, Gothenburg University and holds a Wallander-scholarship from 2011 to 2013. Anette received her PhD in Industrial Economics and Management in 2009 from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, and has a Master of Education from Uppsala and Stockholm Universities.

From January to June 2010 Anette was a visiting scholar at Scancor, Stanford University, during which she conducted an empirical study of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Silicon Valley-area with a special focus on the service industry. Anette is associated to the so-called KUTA-project at the Dept. of Industrial Economics and Management (KTH), focusing on innovation in professional service industry; to the OSIS-project, focusing on social entrepreneurship, as well as to some informal research-networks studying the organizing of cities.

Anette’s research interests concerns how organizing takes place on a micro-level, through actions, narratives and artifacts. In her research, she aims at developing an understanding of how collective actions are initiated, developed and organized in time and space from an idea, and the consequences of this process.