Hong Kong Migrant Enterprise and Diaspora Community in Birmingham: A Social Perspective of Sustainable Growth

Migrant enterprises as businesses with majority of ethnic minority migrant ownership utilising resources at local and global levels through transnational network of migration in a globalisation context have played significant roles in regional economic development. Particularly, Birmingham as a ‘global’ city is renowned for its multicultural development of ethnic economies. Evidently, migrant enterprises founded by Hong Kong entrepreneurs are of particular significance, given Hong Kong entrepreneurs were the earliest post-war Chinese settlers in Birmingham as founders of Birmingham Chinese Quarter as well as the projected sharp increase on the number of Hong Kong migrants arriving in Birmingham since 2020 due to the current socio-political situation in Hong Kong. This research directs attention to the entrepreneurial experience on divergent groups of Hong Kong enterprises, intended to comprehend the social dimension of sustainable growth through superdiverse and transnational entrepreneurial embedding process. Overall research objective is to shape the social dimension of sustainable growth through examinations on interactions between Hong Kong migrant enterprises and diaspora communities in Birmingham. Henceforth, this study is designed as a qualitative interpretivist research, adopted a case study approach with two comparative case studies including 16 in-depth semi-structured interviews. This current research seeks to make three contributions. Firstly, a critical review provides theoretical background on social dimension of sustainable growth with reference to migrant entrepreneurship. Secondly, the adoption of postcolonial theoretical framework provides meaningful interpretations of dynamics between entrepreneurial process of diaspora community and social dimension of sustainable growth. Finally, examinations on divergent groups of Hong Kong migrant enterprises contribute to the field of migrant entrepreneurship from a perspective of sustainable entrepreneurial growth with a focus on transnationalism and superdiversity.