Assessing immigrant entrepreneur’s contribution to entrepreneurial development: A case of small retailers in the Mangaung, Free State province

Background: Despite numerous training programmes by the South African (SA) government equipping citizens with entrepreneurial skills to create businesses for economic development. The country still faces a high rate of liquidation of businesses leading to unemployment. Aim: This article mainly aimed to assess immigrant entrepreneurs’ contribution to entrepreneurial development in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (MMM). Setting: The study focuses on the role that skilled immigrant entrepreneurs play in entrepreneurial development in MMM through Human Capital theory. Methods: Drawing on interpretivist paradigm, the study adopted empirical stance and qualitative approach. A total of 20 participants’ immigrant entrepreneurs and employees from small retailers in MMM were interviewed. Data collected were analysed using the Burnard’s ( 1991 ) stage-by-stage method of the semi-structured interviews. Content analysis was used to analyse data collected. Whilst thematic analysis was employed to analyse the data obtained from the face-to-face interviews. Results: Although immigrant entrepreneurs were using their resources to share expertise and experience, most of their employees were not willing to learn. Immigrant entrepreneurs considered government support as a valuable tool when seeking to understand their contribution to developing the citizens. Accordingly, the results demonstrated that entrepreneurial skills transfer via in-store training influenced local citizens’ entrepreneurial mindset and decision to start businesses. The findings also revealed that immigrant businesses might play a critical role in solving entrepreneurial development of SA as government funding was considered to be a tool for skills transfer and entrepreneurial growth. Conclusion: Whilst most studies investigated immigrant-citizen’s entrepreneurial skills transfer process, little attention was given to possible entrepreneurial development mechanisms through business collaboration. The study concludes that human capital in the form of skilled labour has a positive effect on entrepreneurial development. This informs policymakers to prioritise the upskilling of the workforce and contributes towards value-generating economic activities.