Working paper September 2003 ISSN: X

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1 Paper presented at the 6 th McGill Conference on International Entrepreneurship held at the University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Northern Ireland, UK, September 2003, published in Bell, J., Morrow, T. and Crossan, D. (Ed.) Conference Proceedings, no. 107, CD-Rom. Patterns of Co-Leadership in Ethnic Businesses: A Comparative Study of the Chinese, Italian and Indian/Sikh by Louis Jacques Filion, Sylvie Paré, Teresa V. Menzies, Gabrielle A. Brenner Working paper September 2003 ISSN: X Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. Toute traduction ou toute reproduction sous quelque forme que ce soit est interdite. Les textes publiés dans la série des cahiers de recherche de la Chaire d entrepreneurship Maclean Hunter n engagent que la responsabilité de leurs auteurs.

2 Patterns of Co-Leadership in Ethnic Businesses: A Comparative Study of the Chinese, Italian and Indian/Sikh 1 Louis Jacques Filion, Maclean Hunter Professor of Entrepreneurship, HEC, the Montreal Business School, louisjacques.filion@hec.ca Sylvie Paré, Associate Professor, School of Management, University of Quebec in Montreal, pare.sylvie@uqam.ca Teresa V. Menzies, Associate Professor, Department Management, Marketing and Human Resources, Faculty of Business, Brock University, St. Catherines, tmenzies@spartan.ac.brocku.ca Gabrielle A. Brenner, Applied Economics Institute, HEC, the Montreal Business School, gabrielle.brenner@hec.ca ABSTRACT This research focuses on ethnic entrepreneurs in the Italian, Chinese and Indian/Sikh communities of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Based on interviews with 422 ethnic business owners, 38.2% of the entrepreneurs studied engaged in what we have referred to as coleadership in their firms. The data analysis revealed specific ethnic features relating to the roles of business partnerships and the identity of business partners in the three cities. In all, the Chinese entrepreneurs had partners in 32% of cases, the Italians in 53% and the Indians/Sikhs in 31%. When partners did not participate in all aspects of management, three principal functions of co-leadership were identified, namely production (40%), management (27%) and finance (26%). Responsibilities were generally shared with a family member, because it was most often a family member who was the co-leader. The data show that brothers and spouses were the most frequent business partners in the groups studied. INTRODUCTION This paper explores management practices in ethnic businesses in the Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver metropolitan areas. In particular we explore the presence or absence of co-leaders across the Chinese, Italian and Indian/Sikh ethnic groups. For the purposes of our discussion, coleadership is defined as a partnership between the owner/manager of an ethnic business and another person with complementary characteristics who assumes managerial responsibility (Heenan and Bennis, 1999). We approach this problem from the perspective of the literature dealing with social capital theory (Adler and Kwon, 2000, 2002). Membership in a particular group is viewed as conferring potential advantages on individuals who decide to go into business. The extent of these 1 We would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for its support with this research. We also thank our colleague Jim Brander from the University of British Columbia who manages the financial aspects of this project.

3 advantages is partially defined by the degree of organization of the ethnic community, a feature which we expect will vary by metropolitan area. A larger, better organized ethnic community should confer greater potential advantages than a smaller, poorly organized community. Since so little work has been done on the problem of co-leader partnerships, notably in Canada, we carried out research among three groups of entrepreneurs in this country's three largest cities (Brenner, Menzies, Filion, Ramangalahy and Paré, 2002). While the broader aim of our research is to develop a better understanding of how ethnic entrepreneurs use social capital, we seek to determine in this paper the extent of co-leader partnerships in these three groups, the identity of their partners and the roles they play in accomplishing managerial tasks. BACKGROUND Most studies of ethnic entrepreneurship tend to examine the difficulties encountered both by entrepreneurs who are recent immigrants (Waldinger et al, 1990; Helly and Ledoyen, 1994; Ram, 1994; Paré, 2001) and entrepreneurs who emigrate specifically to obtain start-up assistance under immigrant investors programs (Portes, 1995; Bherer and Robichaud, 1997; Simmons, 1999). Other studies seek to explain the higher levels of entrepreneurship observed in certain communities (Juteau, Daviau and Moallem, 1993), including the Chinese, Jewish and Italian communities. Also, a variety of theories relating to culture, relative disadvantages 1, ethnic enclaves (Light et al., 1994; Galbraith et al., 2003) and middlemen minorities have all contributed to what has become a significant body of knowledge on the subject. In efforts to systematize thinking about the issue of ethnic entrepreneurs, Waldinger, Aldrich and Ward (1990) have proposed a theoretical framework on the impacts of opportunity structure on group resources. The Interactive Model of Ethnic Business Development 2 was introduced and tested by some researchers who found it very useful in empirical testing (Wong and Ng, 1998). The model introduces the notion of opportunity structure in a changing modern industrial society which determines the market conditions and the access to ownership. Also, the model considers the personal characteristics of an entrepreneur, such as predisposing factors and the capacity to mobilize resources, in his choice of strategies. Other authors, such as Frauschauer (2001) have, however, noted the importance of transnational networks in immigrant entrepreneurship in Canada, claiming that prior theoretical frameworks do not fully consider the impact of transnational contacts. More recently, Adler and Kwon (2000, 2002), Sobel (2002), Baron and Markman (2000), Faist (2000) and Sanders and Nee (1996) have begun investigating the impact of social capital on the development of entrepreneurship. Drawing on Aldrich and Zimmer (1986), they conceptualize entrepreneurship as embedded in ongoing social networks. Using a similar approach to explain the origins of ethnic businesses, Deakins (1997) concludes that the success of ethnic enterprises depends on access to resources (financing and labour), access to markets, entrepreneurial motivation and the efficiency of the entrepreneurial strategies used. This latter element refers to the quality of the social capital and the networks embedded across the first three levels. Social capital may include the potential benefits of membership in a specific ethnic group, notably with respect to access to resources and markets (Sanders and Nee, 1996). The contacts established within an ethnic group may be viewed as conducive to the construction of social capital. For - 2 -

4 example, Faist (2000) classifies contacts into those made out of duty, reciprocity and solidarity. The first of these categories (duty) refers to real and formal exchanges, the second (reciprocity) refers to contacts requiring mutual trust between the players, and the last (solidarity) to symbolic ties between the members of a community. It should be obvious that reciprocity and solidarity may be perhaps more easily found within an ethnic group rather than between groups. The social capital derived from any of these three categories is an asset both for the individual and for the community rather than a disadvantage because of the intrinsic dynamic of a closed tie or weak tie ethnic group (Granovetter, 1995). While the concept of social capital has been debated and criticized extensively in recent years, it is now generally agreed that social capital has both an internal and an external aspect (Adler and Kwon, 2000, 2002). That is to say that the concept of social capital refers partly to the collective features of relationships and partly to the individual skills required to trigger them (Menzies, Brenner and Filion, 2003). The theory of social capital has gradually replaced theoretical and empirical discourse on the role of networks (Adler and Kwon, 2000). We agree with the idea expressed by Adler and Kwon concerning the difficulty of reconciling the various theoretical perspectives. Their analysis and the resulting conceptual model shed some interesting light on the multiple properties of social capital. Our work is based on their approach, and we consider that both internal and external factors contribute to the creation and perpetuation of social capital. In this paper, our aim is to establish links between membership in an ethnic group, the development of partnerships and the roles partners play as contributing to the social capital of the entrepreneur. The significance of partnerships is, in our view, an extremely interesting aspect of social capital that deserves greater attention than it has received. It is important to remember the theoretical a priori to the effect that the higher an entrepreneur s social capital, i.e. the stronger the entrepreneur s membership of the ethnic community or the closer his or her links with that community, the greater his or her chances of success 3. In addition, the more closely knit the ethnic community, the greater the probability of success (Light and Rosenstein, 1994), provided the ethnic group concerned shares business success as a value. In this paper, we associate the notion of partnership with the notion of co-leadership, an expression that refers to a partnership between an entrepreneur (owner-manager) of a business enterprise and another person who exercises managerial responsibilities within that firm. For the purposes of this research, we define leadership as a concept that refers to the various ways of being an enterprise leader 4. The term co-leadership is, therefore, useful in analyzing the relationship between partners in an ethnic business. According to Hennan and Bennis (1999), co-leadership is not evocative of role exclusion; on the contrary, it implies a relationship of inclusion and complementarity in a management team. In this paper, inclusion refers to the idea of cohesion between the units in partnership and to the idea of solidarity within an ethnic community. The potential for synergy leading to better entrepreneurial practices is also apparent. Often, in ethnic enterprises, the business is run by more than a single owner-manager. In empirical research into ethnic entrepreneurship in Montreal, Paré and Juteau ( ) noted that approximately one-third of entrepreneurs had partners in their firms. Partnerships therefore appear to be a relatively common form of enterprise management among immigrant and nonimmigrant entrepreneurs alike

5 Since co-leadership is relatively widespread among ethnic entrepreneurs, (Paré and Juteau, 1996) it would appear that this is one form of increasing the social capital of the firm. Such partnerships are generally established with other family members 6, such as the spouse or a brother. The family network tends to fulfill several needs within the enterprise (Bherer and Robichaud, 1997) and is therefore a potential component of social capital 7 (Sanders and Nee, 1996). When the partner is not a family member, the co-leader may be a member of the same the ethnic community, a friend or a business acquaintance. In this paper, we will be examining the links between membership in a specific ethnic group, the place of residence and the gender of the ethnic entrepreneur as factors which may influence the development of co-leadership and the managerial functions assumed by partners. While not stated as formal hypotheses, differences between ethnic groups may be expected to affect the incidence of partnerships and the forms they take, in part because individuals in one group may bring different social capital to the business project, because group norms may impose restraints on the types of persons who may enter into co-leader partnerships, or because the ethnic group to which they belong may be larger or smaller, better or more poorly organized, and so on. The metropolitan area in which they live and work differs in economic structure, a feature which may impose somewhat different constraints on the types of skills partners should have; more importantly, each ethnic group is not equally prevalent in each metropolitan area. Finally, Paré (2002) has shown that ethnic businesses headed by women may be characterized by different patterns of partnership. In this paper, we will be looking at the links between the ethnic factor and location and their impact on the roles played by partners. We will also examine these links from the point of view of the status of the partners. Our hypotheses are based on the assertion that ethnic background, gender and the metropolitan context tend to influence the forms of business partnerships and their operating conditions. They reflect the differences we have observed concerning cultural and social capital between the various ethnic groups, in a range of contexts for the integration of Canadian immigrants, and the specific features of female ethnic entrepreneurship (Paré, 2002). METHODOLOGY Research was conducted in 2001 and 2002 among entrepreneurs in three ethnic groups, namely the Chinese, the Italians and the Indians/Sikhs in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. These three cities are the principal focus of Canadian immigration and have the largest concentrations of immigrants of all origins in Canada. We selected these ethnic groups because they constitute a large enough demographic group in each city to allow for comparison. Once an initial sample was defined, we asked all respondents if they knew of other people who might be interested in participating in our study. The sample is thus snowball in type 8, with all the attendant risks which such a methodology entails. This being said, since there are no complete lists of entrepreneurs in the three ethnic groups we studied, a snowball approach to sampling would appear to be the only method available. The survey objective sought to complete 50 interviews for each ethnic group in each of the three cities (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver), giving a total of 150 for each ethnic group overall, and a potential total of 450 for the three ethnic groups studied. Given the method of sample selection, the results should be viewed as exploratory, even when differences are shown to be statistically significant

6 A total of 422 interviews were actually completed 9, of which 161 (38.2%) indicated that there were partners exercising co-leadership functions in their business. Co-leadership is, therefore, a minority approach to the creation and development of ethnic businesses but it is, nonetheless, an approach used by a substantial number of entrepreneurs in the communities examined. This paper focuses on the 161 entrepreneurs who had partners in their firms, of whom 48 were Chinese, 71 were Italian and 42 were Indian/Sikh. Approximately three-fourths of the sample entrepreneurs were men, and 23.6% were women. Their average age was 43, and there was no significant difference in this respect between the groups. Forty-three of the 161 entrepreneurs (26.7%) making up the sample were born in Canada, which means that nearly three-fourths respondents were immigrant entrepreneurs. More than half had emigrated to Canada before the 1970s and only 13% had arrived after Among immigrant entrepreneurs, we observed some significant differences in the composition of ethnic groups in the different metropolitan areas, reflecting the different immigration periods in Canada. For example, the main wave of Italian immigration took place between the 1920s and the 1970s, while the Chinese came to Canada towards the end of the 19 th century (railway construction) and then in the 1980s and 1990s (via the immigrant investor program), notably those in our sample; and the Sikhs have become established gradually, in small numbers, since the beginning of the century (Isajiw, 1999; Harney, 1991), but essentially in the decades following the Second World War. They initially settled in British Columbia, and gradually moved towards the centre of the country (Ontario, Québec). The questionnaire was composed principally of 85 questions, most of which were fixed choice, although open-ended questions were sometimes employed to ascertain reasons for emigrating to Canada, how the business was founded, problems encountered in the founding and development of the business, perceptions of the host country, etc. The questionnaire was designed to obtain the following types of data: the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent, the general characteristics of the business, factors associated with the creation of the business, features of the business project and information regarding the social and business networks of the entrepreneur. In-depth interviews lasting approximately two hours were carried out with respondents. When the respondent could not speak English or French sufficiently well for the purpose of the interview, the questionnaire was administered in the respondent s mother tongue. Interviewers were recruited from among university students, based on their ability to speak the respondents native language. As a result, we were able to obtain ready cooperation with the individuals selected and high quality responses to the questions asked

7 ANALYSIS OF SURVEY DATA The importance of the co-leadership model Of the 38.2% of the respondent entrepreneurs who adopted a co-leadership approach, more than half had partners (54.7%) who were family members and/or members of the same ethnic group (57.8%). Thus, the co-leadership formula most commonly involved members of the entrepreneur s family. This held true for both male and female entrepreneurs. The data also show significant differences in the incidence of co-leadership between the ethnic groups under study. Table 1 shows that Italian entrepreneurs are much more likely than their Chinese or Sikh counterparts to have co-leadership partners (52.6% versus 30.9% and 31.8%). Although we did not include the age of business variable in our detailed analysis, we think it might partly explain these results, the average Italian business being 16 years old and the others 11 years old. Table 1 about here Also, it appears (table is not presented) that the Italian (63.4%) and Indian/Sikh (59.5%) entrepreneurs were more likely to use family members as partners than were the Chinese entrepreneurs (37.5%). The role played by partners, whether or not they were members of the ethnic community, was one of the more interesting topics we examined in our research. Although there were no differences in co-leadership roles associated with the gender of the entrepreneur, relevant data for the impact of ethnic origin on co-leadership functions are presented in Table 2. Table 2 about here Since the respondent could select as many functions as were filled by his or her partner, the percentage totals exceed 100%. The data should, therefore, be understood as reflecting the relative importance of each management function in ethnic businesses characterized by coleadership. A separate category has been retained to designate the situation where the partner filled all of the functions shown on the questionnaire, as in the model of the typical small family business where there are few or no employees and the owners are personally involved in virtually every aspect of the business (Perreault, 1994). As demonstrated by Table 2, in the bottom category, All functions (χ 2 =6.9, p<=0.05), nearly two-thirds of the Italian and Sikh entrepreneurs stated that their partners fulfilled all leadership functions whereas the Chinese entrepreneurs tended to seek more specific help in the areas of management, finance and production. Generally speaking, when the respondent indicated that the partner was not involved in all aspects of the business, the survey data revealed three priority functions of co-leadership in the firm, namely production (40.4%), management (26.7%) and finance (26.1%). The remaining functions were marketing (12.4%) and human resources management (4.3%)

8 Generally speaking, major differences were not found in co-leadership functions in the three metropolitan areas. Our observations highlight a single component, finance, where there is a difference in the role of the partner due to the city of residence. We found that more entrepreneurs from Toronto (34.4%) sought co-leadership in the area of finance than was the case in Montreal (29.1%) or Vancouver (11.1%) (table not shown). A still more detailed analysis showed no differences in co-leadership roles between ethnic groups in Montreal and Vancouver. However, inter-group differences were found for Toronto (Table 3). For example, the Chinese (38.9%) and especially the Sikh (64.3%) entrepreneurs from Toronto were significantly more likely than the Italians (17.2%) to select their partners to deal with financial questions. This might be related to the age of business which in fact, differs between Chinese and Indian/Sikh entrepreneurs compared to Italian entrepreneurs, the average being 11 years old for the former two groups and 16 for the latter. A family business oriented status compared to the investor oriented status that characterizes Chinese immigration in recent years might be another aspect to explore in future research, this specific question not being addressed in this paper. (Table 3 about here) On the other hand, Chinese entrepreneurs in Toronto were less likely than the other groups to have jack of all trades partners, that is, those who shared in all aspects of running the business. Business partners who are also family members As noted above, over half (54.7%) of the business partners were family members. Which persons in the family were recruited to occupy co-leadership positions? Did male and female entrepreneurs adopt similar strategies? Were there any differences between the ethnic groups and the cities surveyed? It is to these questions that we now turn our attention. Table 4 reveals that business partners identified as family members 10 tended to be brothers (29.8%) and spouses (24.2%) rather than fathers (12.9%), sisters (5.6%) or mothers (4.8.%) We believe that gender constitutes a key variable in the question of entrepreneurship as a whole within so-called minority ethnic groups. In partnership-based businesses, we noted more male co-leadership. One of the hypotheses that can be drawn is that female entrepreneurs are more likely to seek more credible social capital, given the predominant position of males in most minority groups. (Table 4 about here) When differences are examined from the point of view of gender, three times more women than men had partners who were also their spouses (40.5% compared to 17.2%), and the differences are significant. In addition, male entrepreneurs were more likely to ask their brothers rather than their wives to share business leadership. This constitutes an important difference between male and female entrepreneurs, since brothers were twice as likely to be the business partners of male entrepreneurs (35.6%) than female entrepreneurs (16.2%) in the sample. Overall, excluding "other family members", that is, the extended family, the male entrepreneurs reported that 26.3% of their partners were women and 50.5% were men. On the other hand, 64.8% of female - 7 -

9 entrepreneurs reported that their partners were spouses, fathers or brothers as opposed to only 13.5% for mothers and sisters. In other words, men tended to prefer other men as co-leaders, although the difference was not great. Women overwhelmingly preferred men for co-leadership roles. While gender has an important impact on the kinds of people recruited for co-leadership, the data show that ethnic origin does not affect the presence or absence of the spouse as a business partner. On the other hand, there are significant differences between ethnic groups with respect to the presence of brothers as business co-leaders. The incidence of brothers as co-leaders is two to three times higher among entrepreneurs of Italian and Sikh origin than in the Chinese group (Table not presented). We also observed some differences in the patterns of family members as co-leaders by metropolitan area (Table 5). For example, fewer spouses were partners in Montreal ethnic businesses (7.3%) than in Toronto (28.0%) or Vancouver (40.0%). The same is true when the business partner is the brother: Montreal contrasts with the other two cities, with up to twice as many instances of this type of co-leadership (45.5 %) than Toronto (24%) and Vancouver (16.7%). In depth interviews would be required to identify why the patterns of co-leadership appear to be so different in Montreal. (Table 5 here) The more detailed analysis between groups within each metropolitan area showed no basic differences for Toronto and Vancouver, and only Montreal seemed to have any specific features. The entrepreneurs from an Italian (52.0%) and Indian/Sikh (53.3%) background were more likely to be in partnership with a brother than were Chinese entrepreneurs (9.9%, table not shown). Given these observations, there is every reason to believe that ethnic patterns influence the extent and type of partnerships. However, the observations must be qualified: the various groups emigrated at different times to each of the three cities. In Montreal, there is not only a large Italian group that moved to the city many years ago, but also a large segment of the sample represented by entrepreneurs who were born in Canada and who are second or third generation Canadians (who sometimes inherited the family business, leading to partnerships between brothers). In this case, the values of the ethnic group are combined with the models of the host society. CONCLUSION The study described in this paper is concerned with ethnic entrepreneurship 11 in the Italian, Chinese and Sikh communities of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The data revealed specific ethnic features of business partnerships in the three cities. Immigrant status is probably one of the factors that influence this aspect of entrepreneurship, combined with the effect of ethnic origin and location within Canada. We identified 38.2% of the entrepreneurs in our sample (161/422) who applied what we refer to as co-leadership in their firms. This type of responsibility-sharing usually involved a family member, and was generally directed towards the - 8 -

10 production, management and finance aspects of the firm. Spouses were the most common partners, followed by brothers. The work of Heenan and Bennis (1999) on co-leadership showed the connection between this form of collaboration in business pairings where each person simultaneously leads and is led, depending on the respective strengths of each partner. Because the immigration periods for each of the groups studied were not the same in the three cities, it was in Montreal that we found not only a long-established Italian group, but also a group of Italian entrepreneurs born in Canada in other words, second or third generation entrepreneurs with group values more closely associated with the host society s models. This aspect of immigrant composition in the ethnic groups studied in each of the three cities appears to interact with the group s social capital conditions. As we saw earlier, co-leadership tends to be favoured more by Italian entrepreneurs than by entrepreneurs from the other groups. Half the Italians, as opposed to about one-third of the other groups, were involved in co-leadership partnerships. The Italians also tended to be more familyoriented in their choice of partners than the other groups. We believe group values to be a cultural aspect that has an impact on how entrepreneurial knowledge is transmitted, on family cohesion and on the sharing of business responsibilities. It must be remembered that female entrepreneurs are generally in partnership with their husbands, whereas male entrepreneurs are generally in partnership with their brothers. There was one constant, however: in both situations there were principal leaders and complementary leaders 12, engaged in a relationship based on mutual trust and solidarity. The functions of each partner were based on collaboration, an intrinsic condition to the realization of social capital. We can, therefore, say that co-leadership is by no means generalized in ethnic entrepreneurship, that it is not motivated by the same factors in every ethnic group, and that there are differences in the roles played by the partners from one group to the next, at least in the groups we have studied so far, and that the geographical context (with the period of establishment often linked to immigration) sometimes creates specific features. In terms of future studies, it would be worthwhile to revisit these ethnic businesses to determine whether there are significant differences in rates of survival and success which might be related to patterns of co-leadership, that is to say, to determine the effectiveness of either singlehandedly owning and managing the business or of developing patterns of co-leadership and teamwork as additional social capital. Also, it would be interesting to investigate whether the size of a business or its profitability will have an influence on the partnership structure. One might establish a relationship between the size/profitability and the co-leadership structure in an ethnic business. References Adler, P. S.and Kwon, S-W. (2002) Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept. Academy of Management Review, 27 (1):

11 Adler, P. S. and Kwon, S.-W. (2000) Social Capital: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Knowledge and Social Capital, pp Aldrich, H. and Zimmer, C.(1986) Entrepreneurship through Social Networks, in Donald Sexton and Raymond Smiler (Eds.), The Art and Science of Entrepreneurship. Cambridge, pp Baron, R. A. and Markman, G. D. (2000) Beyond Social Capital: How Social Skills can Enhance Entrepreneurs Success, Academy of Management Executive, 14 (1): Bherer, H. and Robichaud. D. (1997) Immigration et entreprenariat dans la région de Québec- Étude sur l attraction et la rétention d entrepreneurs immigrants en région, Université Laval, Québec. Brenner, G. A., Menzies, T.V., Filion, L.J., Ramangalahy, C. and Paré, S. (2002) Entreprises ethniques et identité du partenariat : Une étude comparative entre Chinois, Italiens et Indiens/Sikhs au Canada, Chaire d entrepreneurship Mclean Hunter, HEC-Montréal, Research Report no Cribbin, J. (1981 (1986)) Le leadership, Les éditions de l homme. Deakins, D. Madjmudar, M. and Ram, M. (1997) Developing Success Strategies for Ethnic Minorities in Business: Evidence from Scotland. New Community, 23 (3): Faist, T. (2000), The volume and Dynamics of International Migration and Transnational Social Spaces, Oxford University Press. Froschauer, K.(2001) East Asian and European Entrepreneur Immigrants in British Columbia, Canada: Post-migration Conduct and Pre-migration Context, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27 (2): Garbraith, C.S., Stiles C.H. and Rodriguez, C.L. (2003) Patterns of Trade in Ethnic Enclaves: A Study of Arab and Hispanic Small Businesses, Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 16 (3/4): Granovetter, M. (1995) The Economic Sociology of Firms and Entrepreneurs, in The Economic Sociology of Immigration, Essays on Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship, Russel Sage Foundation, New York. Harney, R.F. (1991b) If One Were to Write a History of Post-war Toronto Italia: Selected Writings by Robert F. Harney, P. Anctil and B. Ramirez (Eds.), Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario. Helly, D. and Ledoyen, A. (1994) Immigrés et création d entreprise, 1990, Montréal, Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture

12 Heenan, D.A. and Bennis, W. (1999) Co-Leaders, The Power of Great Partnerships, John Wiley & Sons. Isajiw, W. (1999) Understanding Diversity, Ethnicity and Race in the Canadian Context, Thompson Educational Publishing, Toronto. Juteau, D., Daviau, J. and Moallem, M. (1993). L'entrepreneurship ethnique à Montréal: première esquisse, Cahiers québécois de démographie, 21 (2) : Light, I. Sabagh, G, Bozorgmehr and Der-Martirosian, C. (1994) Beyond the Ethnic Enclave Economy, Social Problems, 41(1): Light, I. and C. Rosenstein (1994). Race, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in Urban America, Department of Sociology, UCLA. Menzies, T.V., Brenner, G.A., & Filion, L.J. (2003). Social capital, networks and ethnic minority entrepreneurs: Transnational entrepreneurship and bootstrap capitalism. In H. Etemad & R. W. Wright (Eds.), Globalization and Entrepreneurship: Policy and Strategy Perspectives, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Paré, S. (2001) L'entrepreneurship ethnique à Montréal: des prédispositions, du savoir-faire et des stratégies, d ici et d ailleurs, Revue organisation et territoires, 10 (2): Paré, S. (2002). Entrepreneurship ethnique au féminin à Montréal, dans Ruptures, segmentations et mutations du marché du travail, sous la direction de Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay et Lucie-France Dagenais, Presses de l'université du Québec. Paré, S. and Juteau, D. (1996) L entrepreneurship ethnique à Montréal, Chaire en relations ethniques de l Université de Montréal, unpublished paper. Perreault, Y. (1994) L entreprise familiale, La relève, ça se prépare, Éditions transcontinentales and Fondation de l entrepreheurship, Collection Entreprendre. Portes, A. (Ed.) (1995) The Economic Sociology of Immigration, Essays on Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship, Russel Sage Foundation, New York Ram, Monder. (1994) Managing to Survive: Working Lives in Small Firms, Warwick Studies in Industrial Relations, Oxford, Blackwell. Sanders, J.M., Nee, V. (1996). Immigrant Self-employment: The family as Social Capital and the Value of Human Capital, American Sociological Review, 61 (2) : Simmons, A. (1999) La politique d immigration dans les années 1990: plus ça change, plus c est la même chose?, in McAndrew et al. La politique d immigration et d intégration au Canada et en France: analyses comparées et perspectives de recherche, Seminar proceedings, May 20 to 22, 1998, Ministère de l Emploi et de la Solidarité and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, pp

13 Sobel, J. (2002) «Can We Trust Social Capital?», Journal of Economic Literature, XL: Suire, R. (2002) Capital social et performance régionale : Une analyse exploratoire par l économie des interactions, Actes du Colloque de l ASRDLF, Trois-Rivières, août Waldinger, R. Aldrich, H. and Ward, R. (1990) Opportunities, Group Characteristics and Strategies. in Ethnic Entrepreneurs, Immigrant Business in Industrial Societies, Sage Series on Race and Ethnic Relations, Vol. 1, USA. Wong, L. L. and Ng, M. (1998) Chinese Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Vancouver: a Case Study of Ethnic Business Development, Canadian Ethnic Studies, 30 (1):

14 Table 1 The Incidence of Co-Leadership in Ethnic Businesses by Ethnic Origin Observation Entire Sample Comparison by ethnic origin of the respondents Frequency Percentage Chinese % Italian % Sikh % χ 2 F anova c Presence of Co-Leadership *** Significance level *:p<=0.05 **:p<=0.01 ***:p<=0.001 Table 2 The role of partners in the firm by ethnic origin of respondents Variables analyzed Entrepreneurs in Comparison by ethnic origin of respondents partnership Frequency Percentage Chinese % Italian % Sikh % χ 2 / F anova c -Management Finance Marketing Production Human resources All functions * Significance level *:p<=0.05 **:p<=0.01 ***:p<= Entrepreneurs who said their partners fulfilled all these roles in the firm

15 Table 3 The role of partners in the Chinese, Italian and Sikh groups in Toronto Variables analyzed Entrepreneurs in Comparison by ethnic origin of respondents in Toronto partnership Frequency Percentage Chinese % Italian % Sikh % χ 2 / F anova c -Management Finance * -Marketing Production Human Resources Other * Significance level *:p<=0.05 **:p<=0.01 ***:p<=0.001 Table 4 Status of family business partners by sex of respondent Variables analyzed Entrepreneurs in Comparison by sex of respondents partnership Frequency Percentage Male % Female % χ 2 / F anova c -Spouse ** -Brother * -Father Mother Sister Other Significance level *:p<=0.05 **:p<=0.01 ***:p<=

16 Table 5 Status of family business partners by urban area Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver Variables analyzed Entrepreneurs in partnership Comparison by region covered by survey of respondents Frequency/ Mean. a Percentage/ Montreal % Toronto % Vancouver % χ 2 / F anova c -Spouse ** -Brother * -Father Mother Sister Other Significance level *:p<=0.05 **:p<=0.01 ***:p<=

17 Endnotes 1 The disadvantage theory states that restrictive conditions force immigrants to become entrepreneurs. For example, difficulty in finding a job and non-recognition of qualifications or work experience would be factors that would pressure them to start a business (Helly and Ledoyen, 1994). 2 Waldinger et al., 1990: The success of an ethnic business corresponds to its ability to remain in business, in other words to overcome the difficulties connected with business start-up and the management of daily operations in terms of human and financial resources. 4 The work of Cribbin (1986) on this subject is particularly interesting. It shows the many different styles according to the roles played in a firm. 5 The Montreal study used a sample of 450 ethnic entrepreneurs on the Island of Montreal, including majority groups and minorities. The focus was a comparison between immigrants and non immigrants, from the majority defined as French Canadians and English Canadians- and the minorities all other groups, natives or immigrants. The results have not been published in their entirety, including the data on business partnerships. The data reveal, however, that spouses, brothers or sisters, fathers and mothers are the most common partners in firms, in that order. The difference between ethnic groups is not significant. 6 Because of space restrictions in this paper, we have not considered the dimension of the transmission of businesses from the founder to his or her children, which is an important issue in family businesses. 7 For an entrepreneur, the fact of owning a business gives access to human capital and class resources, components that make up what is referred to as social capital. 8 Except for the BDIM database on immigrants, which has a number of problems, including access and the processing complexity, there are no general databases on Canadian entrepreneurs from which a statistical sample could be drawn. The use of the snowball technique has the advantage of rapidly increasing the potential sample size for the purposes of community-based research. The use of this technique is nonetheless associated with the risk of bias due to the selection of candidates from a limited network. 9 However, the final total of entrepreneurs was 422, not 450, because some of the questionnaires were incomplete and were therefore discarded. The participation rate in the survey was not systematically recorded. 10 Some entrepreneurs reported more than one family member as exercising co-leadership. All responses were used in the compilation of this table such that all mentions of brothers, husbands, sisters, etc. are reported. The total sample size for Tables 4 and 5 is, therefore, the total number of times a family member was mentioned rather than the total number of entrepreneurs reporting family members as co-leaders. 11 For the purposes of this paper, we included the 2 nd and 3 rd generations. 12 The notion of principal and complementary leaders reflects the positions that certain administrators agree to occupy with regard to the division of business functions. Since the positions they occupy are not necessarily equal for all functions, the idea of complementarity of functions, individually or as a group, is introduced