Variables’ description
| Variable | Description and construction of the variable |
|---|---|
| Years in Italy | The number of years spent by the individual in Italy. It is a proxy of the degree of integration in the host country in literature on migration (Amit, 2010) |
| Education level | A dummy equal to zero when the entrepreneur has only a primary education. The education level is an indicator of the human capital owned by the entrepreneur |
| Business performance (output) | A dummy variable equal to zero if the firm has experienced a negative change in the sales volume if it the sales volume was stable across the period 2009–2012 and to one if it has experienced an increase. Given the difficulty of gathering information on ethnic enterprises especially with regard to profit and revenues, the questionnaire posed questions stressing comparison instead of quantities (see the work by Mehrotra and Biggeri, 2005, 2007b) |
| Size | Measured through the number of workers employed by the entrepreneur |
| Hours worked per day | Measured through the number of hours worked on average per day by the entrepreneurs |
| Days worked per week | Measured through the number of days worked on average per week by the entrepreneurs |
| Owner’s sex | A dummy variable equal to zero when the entrepreneur is male and equal to one when the owner is female. The empirical literature has generally found that the gender may have an impact on economic performance of ethnic firms (Ram et al., 2017) |
| Relational social capital | Measure using as a proxy the level of quality of relational social capital. The variable is a dummy equal to one when the owner has high quality of relation in the community of reference |
| Business social capital | Measured using as a proxy the number of Steady business relationships of the enterprise aggregated with the variable below (business social capital in Italy and in China). This variable is a dummy equal to zero if the firm has no established steady business relations, to one if it has at least one or more stable relations |
| Business social capital (Italy) | Measured using as a proxy the presence of direct business relations to Italian retailers: a dummy equal to one when the enterprise sells/buys directly to/from Italian retailers or retailers located in Italy |
| Business social capital (China) | Measured using as a proxy the variable Set up capital from China: a dummy equal to 1 if the informal capital used to set up the enterprise comes from China and equal to zero instead if this capital comes from family and friends based in Italy |
| Total social capital (categorical) | A variable created by aggregating the variables above |
| Variable | Description and construction of the variable |
|---|---|
| Years in Italy | The number of years spent by the individual in Italy. It is a proxy of the degree of integration in the host country in literature on migration ( |
| Education level | A dummy equal to zero when the entrepreneur has only a primary education. The education level is an indicator of the human capital owned by the entrepreneur |
| Business performance (output) | A dummy variable equal to zero if the firm has experienced a negative change in the sales volume if it the sales volume was stable across the period 2009–2012 and to one if it has experienced an increase. Given the difficulty of gathering information on ethnic enterprises especially with regard to profit and revenues, the questionnaire posed questions stressing comparison instead of quantities (see the work by |
| Size | Measured through the number of workers employed by the entrepreneur |
| Hours worked per day | Measured through the number of hours worked on average per day by the entrepreneurs |
| Days worked per week | Measured through the number of days worked on average per week by the entrepreneurs |
| Owner’s sex | A dummy variable equal to zero when the entrepreneur is male and equal to one when the owner is female. The empirical literature has generally found that the gender may have an impact on economic performance of ethnic firms ( |
| Relational social capital | Measure using as a proxy the level of quality of relational social capital. The variable is a dummy equal to one when the owner has high quality of relation in the community of reference |
| Business social capital | Measured using as a proxy the number of Steady business relationships of the enterprise aggregated with the variable below (business social capital in Italy and in China). This variable is a dummy equal to zero if the firm has no established steady business relations, to one if it has at least one or more stable relations |
| Business social capital (Italy) | Measured using as a proxy the presence of direct business relations to Italian retailers: a dummy equal to one when the enterprise sells/buys directly to/from Italian retailers or retailers located in Italy |
| Business social capital (China) | Measured using as a proxy the variable Set up capital from China: a dummy equal to 1 if the informal capital used to set up the enterprise comes from China and equal to zero instead if this capital comes from family and friends based in Italy |
| Total social capital (categorical) | A variable created by aggregating the variables above |
Notes:
In choosing the best proxy for social capital, we focus on measuring social capital at the individual level, i.e. ego-centered measures, namely, survey-based assessment of individual perceptions and presence and lack of presence of relations (Carrillo Álvarez and Riera Romaní, 2017)
Sharing content requires targeting cookies to be enabled. Please update your cookie preferences to use this feature.