This paper explores the experiences of Cambodian French returnees who are contributing to transformative change in Cambodia as institutional entrepreneurs. In order to delve into how returnees and their work are perceived in both host and home country, this multi-sited research project was designed as a comparative case study. Data was primarily collected through conversations with individual informants from the Lyonnese and Parisian Cambodian community as well as selected key informants in Phnom Penh. Excerpts of case studies are presented and discussed to illustrate the history, context and situation of their return as these influence their institutional entrepreneurial activities and the ways in which they use their transnational social networks as resources. It is argued that the process of return and the initiation of institutional entrepreneurship are best explored through the threefold activities of returnees’ brokering, bargaining and building for transformative change as affected by (trans)national opportunity structures and institutions.
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