The effects of intergroup boundary permeability and hierarchy legitimacy on immigrant entrepreneurs' affective states, exchange strategies, and intentions toward suppliers

摘要

With globalization and immigration trends accelerating, today's entrepreneurial milieu is replete with culturally diverse, sometimes opposing, expectations and norms that affect industrial relationships vastly and deeply. Notwithstanding the large and multidisciplinary body of research on immigrant entrepreneurs, researchers have yet to explore how social structure influences the exchange relationships between immigrant entrepreneurs and suppliers. The present research employs relative deprivation theory to examine the influence of social structure on immigrant entrepreneurs' affective states, exchange strategies, and intentions toward suppliers. Results from a scenario-based experiment spotlight boundary permeability and hierarchy legitimacy as two key structural determinants of immigrant entrepreneurs' affective states (e.g., hope, stress, and anger), exchange strategies (i.e., status quo acceptance, upward mobility, opportunism, relationalism), and intentions toward suppliers (i.e., preference for ethnic suppliers, commitment to mainstream suppliers). The direct and indirect effects are delineated; and findings, along with their implications for research, practice, and policy are exposed.