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Mixed Embeddedness and Nigerian Immigrants' Informal Mixed E mbeddedness and Nigerian I mmigrants’ Informal Entrepreneurship in Ghana ANTWI BOSIAKOH, THOMAS BA (Sociology with Geography & Resource Development) Mphil (Sociology) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology 2017 DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY M A C Q U A R I E U N I V E R S I T Y i ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of content iii Abstract vii Statement of originality viii Published material ix Acknowledgements x List of tables xii List of figures xiii List of acronyms xiv Chapter 1: Introduction to migration and immigrant entrepreneurship 1 1.1 Setting the context 1 1.2 Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship: A brief overview 4 1.3 The research case: Rationale, objectives and questions 7 1.4 Prospectus of the chapters 10 1.5 Conclusion 11 Chapter 2: A socio-economic and political portrait of Ghana and the evolution of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship 13 2.1 Introduction 13 2.2 Ghana: A country context 13 2.2.1 A basic profile of Ghana 13 2.2.2 Political environment 15 2.2.3 The economic environment 18 a. The economic situation of Ghana 18 b. The Ghanaian economy and informality 18 2.3 Immigrants and the socio-economic and political profile of Ghana 20 2.4. The evolution of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana 22 2.4.1 Hausa traders and the origin of economic contacts 22 2.4.2 Colonial period - 1844-1957: Expansion and consolidation 24 2.4.3 Post-colonial consolidation and decline – 1958-1969 27 2.4.4 The Post Aliens Compliance Era: 1970-1990 30 2.4.5 Immigrants’ participation in Ghana’s economy: 1990 – present 32 2.5. Conclusion 33 Chapter 3: Literature review of immigrants’ entrepreneurship research 35 3.1 Introduction 35 3.2 Conceiving the entrepreneur 35 3.3 Immigrant entrepreneurship 39 3.3.1 What is immigrant entrepreneurship? 39 3.3.2 Characterisations of immigrant entrepreneurs 40 3.4 Markets and sectoral openings for immigrant entrepreneurs 43 3.5 Embeddedness of immigrant entrepreneurship 45 3.6 Borderlands, migration and immigrant entrepreneurship 49 3.6.1 Immigrants in borderland 50 3.6.2 Entrepreneurial borderland or immigrant entrepreneurs in borderland? 51 3.7 Transnational immigrant entrepreneurship 54 3.8 Conclusion 57 Chapter 4: Immigrant entrepreneurship: Theoretical foundations and application to Nigerian entrepreneurs in Ghana 59 4.1 Introduction 59 4.2 Traditional theories of immigrant entrepreneurship 59 4.2.1 The personal trait theory 59 4.2.2 Cultural explanation of immigrant entrepreneurship 60 4.2.3 The immigrants’ disadvantage theory 62 4.3 Social embeddedness perspective of immigrant entrepreneurship 63 iii 4.4 Structural and interactive models of immigrant entrepreneurship 66 4.4.1 Structuralist explanation of immigrant entrepreneurship 66 4.4.2 Interactionist perspective of immigrant entrepreneurship 68 4.5 Towards an integrated approach – the mixed embeddedness 69 4.6 Extending the mixed embeddedness argument 73 4.6.1 Borderland as context of mixed embeddedness 73 4.6.2 A transnational (mixed) embeddedness? 76 4.7 Conclusion 79 Chapter 5: Research methodology & characteristics of the entrepreneurs and their businesses 81 5.1 Introduction 81 5.2 The ontological and epistemological positioning 81 5.3 Epistemologically constructivist; theoretically mixed embedded 82 5.4 Accra, Kumasi and Ashaiman: The contexts for Nigerian immigrants’ entrepreneurship in Ghana 83 5.5 The study design 86 5.5.1 Negotiating access to the entrepreneurs 88 5.5.2 Sampling strategy 88 5.6 Data collection strategies 90 5.6.1 Interviews 90 5.6.2 Observations 92 5.7 Data management and analysis 93 5.7.1 Translation and transcription 93 5.7.2 Analysing the data 93 5.8 Entrepreneurs and their businesses: Characteristics 95 5.8.1 Business locations and business types 95 5.8.2 Age and Gender 96 5.8.3 Marriage and family 97 5.8.4 Education 98 5.8.5 Duration of stay in Ghana 99 5.8.6 Ethnic profiles of the entrepreneurs 100 a) Ethnic origins 100 b) The state origins of the entrepreneurs 101 5.8.7 Languages spoken by the entrepreneurs 101 5.9 Conclusion 103 Chapter 6: Understanding Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in contemporary Ghana 105 6.1 Introduction 105 6.2 Nature of Nigerian businesses in Ghana 105 6.2.1 Positionality 105 a. Locational concentration 105 b. Sectoral niches 108 6.2.2 Creative imitation or strategic entrepreneurial apprenticeship 110 6.3. Strategies and practices 111 6.3.1 Guerrilla Entrepreneurship 111 6.3.2 Undercutting strategy 113 6.3.3. The human side of business 114 a. Employee recruitment practices 114 i) Salaried recruitment 114 ii) Apprenticeship as recruitment strategy 115 iii) Family labour 116 b. Relational mediation practices 118 i) Clientele attraction 118 ii) Promotion and advertisement 121 iv iii) Customer referrals 126 6.4. Risks: Threats and experiences of eviction 129 6.5. Enmeshed networks 131 6.5.1 Family and descent 132 6.5.2 Friendship networks 134 6.5.3 Religious networks 136 6.5.4 Trade masters/mentors 140 6.5.5 Co-ethnics 140 6.6 Conclusion 141 Chapter 7: Mixed embeddedness and Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana 145 7.1 Introduction 145 7.2 Historical embeddedness 146 7.2.1 Why history matters in mixed embeddedness 146 7.2.2 The historicised mixed embeddedness 147 7.2.3 A case study of Baba Olutunde 150 7.3 Socio-cultural embeddedness 153 7.3.1 Proverbial Ghanaian hospitality 153 7.3.2 Peace of mind and safety from crime 156 7.3.3 Regularity in power supply 159 7.3.4 Ethnic concentration and its embeddedness 160 7.4 Economic embeddedness 163 7.4.1 The Ghanaian economic context 163 7.4.2 Ease to set-up business 164 7.4.3 Informality 166 a. Entrepreneurial informality 166 b. Informal power brokers 167 7.5 Politico-institutional and policy embeddedness 169 7.5.1 Neo-liberal political economy and policy framing in Ghana 169 7.5.2 Telecommunication policy embeddedness 170 7.5.3 The GIPC Act and participation of immigrants in Ghana’s economy 172 7.6. Conclusion: Whither the mixed embeddedness theory? 175 Chapter 8: Nigerian (immigrant) entrepreneurs in borderland locations in Ghana 179 8.1 Introduction 179 8.2 Migration and borderland narratives 180 8.2.1 Otunla and Osuofia: Bribes that open borders 180 8.3 Ghana: A borderland space 182 8.3.1 Trapped in a web: Supra-national protocol vs National legislation 182 8.3.2 Onyeama: In Mestiza 183 8.3.3 Adamma: Involuntary immobility in temporal-spatial borderland 187 8.3.4 Liminal context 189 8.4 Borderland entrepreneurship 194 8.4.1 Immigrant entrepreneurship on the margin of (in)formality 195 8.4.2 Neither retail nor wholesale: A third perspective of immigrants’ trading in urban Ghana 197 a. From supplier/wholesaler to retailer 198 b. Mixed breed: (Both/neither) retail (and/nor) wholesale 199 8.4.3 Entrepreneurial specialisation vs. entrepreneurial eclecticism 201 8.4.4 Entrepreneurship in inter-generational borderland 205 a. Entrepreneurial idea 206 b. Inherited business 207 c. Business succession intentions 209 d. Inter-generational continuities and discontinuities 210 8.5 Conclusion: Borderland as a defining feature of mixed embeddedness in the v context of migration and entrepreneurship 212 Chapter 9: Transnational embeddedness of Nigerian immigrant entreprenurship in Ghana 215 9.1 Introduction 215 9.2 Transnationalism as embeddedness 215 9.3 Three levels of transnational embeddedness 217 9.3.1 One-way transnationalism 217 9.3.2 Two-way transnationalism 218 9.3.3 A Tripartite transnationalism 222 9.4 Transnational embeddedness in West African States 224 9.4.1 ECOWAS: Institution and regulation 224 9.4.2 ECOWAS as embeddedness 225 9.4.3 ECOWAS: Emerging institutions, practices and services 227 9.5 Transnational recruitment of labour 229 9.6 A transnational mixed embeddedness? 230 9.7 Conclusion 232 Chapter 10: Mixed embeddedness and Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana: Synthesis and conclusion 235 10.1 Introduction 235 10.2 Synthesised issues from the study 236 10.2.1 Nature of Nigerian immigrants’ entrepreneurdhip in Ghana 236 10.2.2 The mixed embeddedness of Nigerian immigrants’ entrepreneurship in Ghana 237 a. Group-level characteristics as embeddedness 237 b. The Ghanaian context of embeddedness 238 i) Urban/inner-city positionality as embeddedness 238 ii) Ghanaian socio-cultural embeddedness 239 iii) The economic context of embeddedness 240 iv) Politics, policy and law 240 v) Historical embeddedness 241 10.2.3 Borderland context of embeddedness 241 10.2.4 Transnationalism and mixed embeddedness 242 10.3 A composite situation of mixed embeddedness and implications for theory and research 244 10.4 Conclusion 246 10.5 Limitations 247 10.6 Areas of further research 248 Bibliography 251 Appendices 293 Appendix 1. List of respondents 293 Appendix 2. Ethical and scientific approval 294 Appendix 3. Participant information and consent form 296 vi ABSTRACT This thesis on entrepreneurship of Nigerian immigrants in Ghana, is positioned at the intersection of mixed embeddedness as an explanatory framework for migration and the formation of immigrant entrepreneurship in a developing country context. Leaning on the constructivist epistemology with the empirical base anchored in in-depth interviews and observation data from Accra, the capital of Ghana, Kumasi, the second largest city after Accra, and Ashaiman, a sprawling sub-urban settlement, it argues that the formation of immigrant entrepreneurship can be researched as a form of mixed embeddedness. Moreover, since most research on immigrant entrepreneurship and mixed embeddedness focus on advanced western societies and less reflective of the actualities in developing country contexts, it demonstrates that Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana can be used to understand mixed embeddedness and extend it along the lines of borderlands and transnationalism.
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