Small business development: immigrants' access to loan capital

Although immigrant entrepreneurs have accounted for a significant growth in small businesses in the United States over the past decades, we still have limited information on how immigrants access loan capital to seed their new ventures and grow established businesses. This study seeks to shed light...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of small business and entrepreneurship 2017-05, Vol.29 (3), p.193-209
Main Authors: Lee, W., Black, S.L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
barriers to access
capital d'emprunt
Entrepreneurs
Immigrants
immigrés
l'accès
loan capital
Noncitizens
obstacles à
petite entreprise
Small business
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Summary:Although immigrant entrepreneurs have accounted for a significant growth in small businesses in the United States over the past decades, we still have limited information on how immigrants access loan capital to seed their new ventures and grow established businesses. This study seeks to shed light on availability of loan programs for immigrant entrepreneurs and better identify potential obstacles these immigrants experience in funding. The findings show that immigrant business owners experience issues with accessing capital due to lack of knowledge about available resources, technical difficulties, and reluctance to obtain loans from financial institutions. The loan providers also identified key constraints such as language barriers and trust issues. This study suggests that government entities as well as other loan providers need to improve communication as well as accessibility to loan programs in order to bridge the resource disparity for immigrant entrepreneurs in accessing loan capital.
ISSN:0827-6331
2169-2610
DOI:10.1080/08276331.2017.1297106