The document discusses entrepreneurial behavior among immigrants as a strategy for coping with negative social identity. It outlines social identity theory and how immigrants may use individual mobility, social creativity, and social competition to cope with an inappropriate social identity. The study interviewed 94 immigrant workers in Spain to examine if entrepreneurship is used as a strategy to cope with their negative social identity from being an immigrant minority group and to psychosocially adapt to the host society. The conclusions found that entrepreneurship provided individual mobility, social advantages in comparison to others, and a basis for social competition, allowing immigrants to enhance their negative social identity and adapt to the local work and social environment.

1. Entrepreneurial Behaviour
among Immigrants as a Strategy
to Cope with Negative Social
Identity
How to cite:
González-González, J. M. y Bretones, F. D. (2013). Pushed or Pulled?
Entrepreneurial Behaviour among Immigrants as a Strategy to Cope with
Negative Social Identity. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 20(5),
633-648. doi: 10.1080/1070289X.2013.832680
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es

2. Social identity
• Identity may be seen as a way of giving meaning to the world,
favouring the individual over group and social issues
• Through social identity, the individual seeks to meet his/her basic
need for inclusion in, or membership of the group, while being
distinct from other groups
• Three coping strategies for an inappropriate social identity have been
pinpointed through SIT: individual mobility, social creativity and social
competition (Tajfel and Turner 1979).
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es

3. Migration
• Immigrants, as a minority group, face worse social, economic and
labour situations than the native majority
• Rates of unemployment and precarious labour situations are higher
than among the native population and, immigrants perform the
toughest and least skilled jobs
• Immigrant status threatens the social identity people hold and
favours a negative perception of the social category they belong to.
• It is vital to cope with the psychological stress associated with
immigrant status both for physical and mental health and to ensure
social and labour adaptation.
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es

4. Migration and entrepreneurship
• A dense theoretical and conceptual network has been developed to
examine entrepreneurial behaviour amongst immigrants.
• First approaches went hand in hand with cultural theories that
tended to focus on cultural and religious values inherent in certain
groups, such as the Jews or the Chinese.
• These «culturalist» views have since been questioned by ecological
approaches that pay greater attention to socio-economic and
situational conditioning factors under which immigrant operate.
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es

5. Objective
• Taking identity as a psychological process, in this paper we study the
entrepreneurial behaviour of immigrants in Spain as a strategy to
cope with negative social identity derived from membership of their
group and as a mechanism for psycho-social adaptation to the social,
political, economic and working characteristics in the Mediterranean
environment in southern Europe.
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es

6. Methodology
• In-deep interviews with 94 immigrant workers in Spain was carried
out
• Average 67 minutes with a range between 40 – 90 minutes
• An interpretative analysis of the discourse was performed with the
data collected
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es

7. Conclusions
• Entrepreneurial behaviour among the interviewed immigrants acts as a
mechanism for individual mobility to enable them to cope with the
negative social identity arising
• Immigrant entrepreneurial behavior confer an advantage in the social
comparison, for instance the benefits of employment and creation of
wealth not only for the immigrant group but also for the host society
• Entrepreneurial behaviour among immigrants can be used as a criterion for
social competition as a starting point to enhance their negative social
identity
• These factors place immigrants in certain social and working circumstances
that lead them to implement entrepreneurial behavior as a strategy to
cope with a negative social identity and to adapt psychosocially to the
working, social and economic world in host society.
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es

8. You can obtain a full free copy of this research
at:
Francisco D. Bretones (University of Granada, Spain)
fdiazb@ugr.es