Social influence in cross-border entrepreneurial migration policy

Abstract

This paper addresses the possibilities for public policy to stimulate the entrepreneurial perceptions of individuals by leveraging micro-level social influences produced by migrant entrepreneurs. As opposed to the conventional stand according to which entrepreneurial ecosystems can be stimulated by financial, regulative, cognitive and normative mechanisms of influence, the present study suggests that socio-psychological influences enacted by exogenous policy intervention can be used as a mechanism for shifting the entrepreneurial perceptions of individuals. Cross-border entrepreneurial migration is proposed as an instrument for enacting these socio-psychological influences and enabling public policy to benefit from the distinctively different entrepreneurial behaviors of migrant entrepreneurs and local individuals in the host country. The study offers substantial policy implications by extending the theoretical reasoning guiding the stimulation of entrepreneurial ecosystems through public policy intervention,providing discussion of opportunity perception in cross-border context, and offering an alternative socio-economic perspective on the role of migrant entrepreneurs in the economic life of host countries.