Ethnic and migrant entrepreneurship: The case of muslim lebanese entrepreneurs in dearborn

Abstract

The majority of Muslims live in less-developed countries, however some have been increasingly migrating to developed first world countries in search for a better life particularly due to the fact that many Muslim countries are currently suffering from hostilities. The so-called “Arab Spring” has resulted in a new wave of migration with hundreds of thousands of Muslims migrating from their war-torn countries to the west especially to Europe. This trend highlights the urgency of further studies of ethnic entrepreneurship. Those refugees will need decades to assimilate and be able to get regular jobs. In this paper, we aim to discuss the emergence of enterprises by Muslims who live in a country where they represent a minority, as a case study we focus on Lebanese migrant entrepreneurs in Dearborn, Michigan in the USA. The Lebanese culture is very similar to the Syrian culture thus we hope that this brief overview of Lebanese migrant entrepreneurship can provide an example that helps in dealing with the current tide of Syrian migration to the west.