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Page 1: Ethnic communities and ethnic business: An overview

This article was downloaded by: [University of Auckland Library]On: 06 December 2014, At: 04:34Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Ethnic and Migration StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20

Ethnic communities and ethnic business: An overviewRobin Ward a ba Deputy Director of the SSRC Research Unit , Ethnic Relationsb Senior Research Fellow in Ethnic Business , University of AstonPublished online: 30 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Robin Ward (1983) Ethnic communities and ethnic business: An overview, Journal of Ethnic andMigration Studies, 11:1-2, 1-9, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.1983.9975811

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.1983.9975811

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Page 2: Ethnic communities and ethnic business: An overview

Ethnic communities andethnic business: anoverview

Robin Ward

A new area of researchBusiness creation and development among ethnic minorities in the industrial-ised world has become almost as widespread a phenomenon as the inter-national labour migration to which it is in large part a response. But while asubstantial literature has developed on the situation of ethnic minorities inemployment, research on ethnic business has only just begun to emerge inBritain. In fact, studies carried out within quite different paradigms on differenttopics and for different reasons may shed light on the circumstances ofminority entrepreneurs, as is indicated in the papers contained in this specialsection of New Community.

While some of the research reported here was carried out primarily for reasonsof academic enquiry, other studies were undertaken, sponsored or supportedby departments of central or local goyernment. Brooks, for example, summar-ises results from a survey of West Indian and Asian business carried out by theLondon Borough of Lambeth. The authority was concerned to know how farblack business provided opportunities for some of the large numbers of theblack population suffering from discrimination and disadvantage in theemployed sector. Since very little was known about black or Asian business inthe borough, a comprehensive survey was undertaken; this led to the con-clusion that, while many of the claims that had been made concerning the roleof minority business in the regeneration of the inner city could not be upheld,the promotion of black business was, none the less, a worthwhile policyobjective. Brooks' paper contains a summary of measures undertaken by theBorough Council in response to the needs of minority entrepreneurs identifiedin the survey. The results lead Brooks to question, at least for Lambeth, muchof the conventional wisdom that Asian business is more effective than Afro-Caribbean enterprises.

The paper by Sills, Tarpey and Golding arises out of work sponsored byLeicester City Council, evaluating the Inner Area Programme in the city.While taking the form of a sample survey of residents, it sheds an interestinglight on the question of the impact of successful business activity amongmembers of an ethnic minority on the economic circumstances of the rest ofthe community. The national reputation of Leicester as a centre of thrivingAsian business makes the contrast between Clark and Rughani's profile ofIndian manufacturers in the city and the assessment by Sills and his colleaguesof the Asian community as a whole particularly valuable.

Peter Wilson's paper derives from work undertaken with the support of centralgovernment, though at the prompting of the Runnymede Trust. His survey ofminority business in Brent, one of the very few boroughs with both large-scaleAsian and West Indian settlement, also questions some commonly heldassumptions, in particular the view that racial discrimination is the primereason underlying the relatively low level of black business development.Analysis of the ways in which effective support can be given to minority entre-preneurs is quite as important as studies focussing directly on discriminatorypractices.

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Sawyerr's account of black business in Moss Side, Manchester, was also under-taken with a view to identifying ways of supporting local minority firms. Aftersummarising the main characteristics of black-owned firms in the area, heidentifies the interests which other parties may have in encouraging minoritybusiness, drawing heavily on experience in the United States, where minoritybusiness support policies emerged after the riots of the 1960s.

The papers by Trevor Jones and by Clark and Rughani are more rigorouslyanalytical, but each raises important questions of policy. Pointing to the highdegree of segregation of Asian communities in British cities, Jones argues that,while this represents a remarkable case of survival through collective self-help,in effect it constitutes a transfer of real wealth from the most disadvantagedwithin the segregated area to the less disadvantaged outside. Yet the degree ofresidential concentration, a feature which should encourage business develop-ment through the market opportunities it provides, together with the flair forbusiness attributed (to date somewhat impressionistically) to Asians in Britainin general, arguably ought to result in successful entrepreneurial activity andan increase in economic resources in the community. Further research shouldincrease our understanding not only of the circumstances in which wealth iscreated through minority business, but also of the extent to which a particularminority community benefits as a result. This raises the broader question ofwho is the chief beneficiary of ethnic business, to which we return later in thispaper.

Finally, reference has already been made to Clark and Rughani's account ofIndian manufacturers in Leicester. Along with other papers this shows theimportance of subjective factors in interpreting minority business, not least theperceptions and evaluations of the entrepreneur. Much work on ethnicbusiness, especially research carried out within an economic framework,assumes that outputs (growth, profitability, etc.) are essentially a reflection ofinputs (such as capital and market opportunities). But it is clear from this casestudy that one of the chief constraints on growth was the attitude of the entre-preneurs to their businesses. Studies which do not take into account the ways inwhich strategic decisions within the firm reflect the orientation to the businessof the entrepreneur can be dangerously misleading. It is a feature of all thefollowing pieces that they are based on the results of large-scale data collection.But the implication of the need to focus on the orientation of the entrepreneurto the business is that intensive case studies using a qualitative methodologymay be equally important. A forthcoming overview of ethnic business inBritain (Ward and Jenkins 1984) illustrates the variety of approaches used bysociologists, geographers, anthropologists and others in assessing the businessachievements of different minorities in Britain.

While there is general agreement that there should be equal access for all,regardless of racial or ethnic distinctions, to employment in the labour market,the view that members of minority communities should be encouraged to gointo business has been less widely accepted. The following papers help toexplain why this should be so. It is the aim of this introductory overview to putthem into perspective and in so doing to provide a framework within whichexisting patterns of ethnic business in Britain (and elsewhere) can be evaluatedand the desirability of developing policies to support minority businessdevelopment can be assessed. The first part of this paper sets out a model forinterpreting ethnic business; the latter part draws on the articles that followto examine the balance of advantage, focussing in particular on minority entre-preneurs, the ethnic communities from which they are drawn, and on govern-ment involvement, and concludes with some observations on interventions toencourage ethnic business.

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1. Interpreting ethnie business(a) A response to constrained employment opportunitiesBusiness development among members of minority communities has fre-quently been.seen as a response to constraints experienced in obtainingemployment in the labour market. In the British context this has occurred as adirect consequence of the practice of racial discrimination in employment, butit also reflects an overall shortage of jobs in the national economy. For in theyears since large-scale labour migration from the New Commonwealth toBritain began, there has been a marked change in the international balance ofcompetitiveness; this has had profound effects on the viability of industry, andthese effects have been reinforced by the shedding of labour as a result of tech-nological change and by the recession which has affected the level of businessactivity throughout the world. In these circumstances members of minoritycommunities, as well as indigenous workers, have frequently been obliged tolook for opportunities to support themselves, simply as a consequence of thedeclining size of the labour market. The operation of discriminatory barriers inemployment which is likely to be encouraged by the overall contraction in thenumber of jobs means that the impact of economic trends in Britain has beengreater on racial minorities. To that extend pressure to become self-employedas a consequence of structural changes in the economy has also been greater.

(b) Using ethnic resources to respond to business opportunitiesThere is, however, a quite different way of explaining business development inethnic communities, which emphasises that this is a way in which potentialminority entrepreneurs may (i) use their own resources (ii) to respond tobusiness opportunities (iii) without being held back by external constraints.Clearly, going into business as a deliberate strategy may be the result of diffi-culties in gaining employment for the reasons outlined above. If the opportu-nities to make money in business are real, however, there is no logical reasonwhy this activity should be confined to those who are unable to satisfy theiraspirations in the labour market.

(i) Resources. The resources to which minority entrepreneurs have access canbe divided into (a) human capital, (b) labour and (c) capital. Human capitalrefers to skills, orientation to business and experience in business, and culturalpredispositions - these will include attitudes to activities which are widely seenas unpleasant or unrewarding as well as more general values, such as a belief indeferment of gratification (Mars and Ward 1984). In some ethnic communitiesinternal regulation of competition may be possible and this will clearly benefitthose businesses which are sanctioned.

Ethnic entrepreneurs may also have privileged access to the labour ofcommunity members. Discrimination in employment in the open labourmarket makes them more accessible to businesspeople within the community.Cultural proscriptions on wives working in non-ethnic establishments mayhave similar effects and, more generally, a communal orientation within aminority and within family and kin groups will facilitate the use of 'internal'labour in the ethnic enterprise - this will lead, for example, to communitymembers offering their services at a reduced economic cost in the interests ofacquiring training and experience which will allow them to set up their ownbusinesses more effectively in due course. While such an 'investment inexperience' may occur throughout the economy, it is more likely to occurwhere relations between owner/manager and budding entrepreneur are basedon informal understandings in the context of community solidarity.

Members of ethnic minorities wanting to set up in business may also have someadvantage in gaining access to capital. The stronger the bonds of family andcommunal solidarity, the more likely is the transmission of capital within thecommunity (and especially within the family) on terms which are flexible and

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can be adjusted to suit the interests of the parties involved. The burden ofstarting a business involving the repayment of a fixed interest loan, one thatfrequently carries a high rate of interest in relation to the likely profit margin,can in these circumstances often be avoided.

Finally, in considering the resources available within minority communities,whether of labour or of human or financial capital, it should be stressed thatthere is no particular advantage in a high degree of cultural assimilation in themajority society. Indeed, the reverse may well be true: access to ethnicresources may be in inverse relationship to the degree to which the communityis separated from wider society.

(ii) Opportunities. Market opportunities can be divided between those withinthe minority community and those in the wider market. Naturally, the ethnicentrepreneur is at a particular advantage in servicing the needs of communitymembers. Here the wider the range of products and services which are distinc-tive to the ethnic group, and the greater its degree of encapsulation from themajority society, the greater the potential advantage for business people fromwithin the community. Where there is a wide range of unique cultural items,goods and services, and where shopping and the take-up of services are withinethnic boundaries, niches develop which shield traders from outsidecompetition.

Business people cannot always rely, however, on prior access to the require-ments of community members for goods and services; and even where theycan, this may not form a viable basis for staying in business. Some minoritieshave specialised, for example, in servicing other communities - an obviouscase in point is the role of Asian traders in the Caribbean (see Niehoff andNiehoff 1960). Indian shopkeepers may thus show an equal interest incapturing the Afro-Caribbean retail market in Britain. Other difficulties arisewhere the ethnic group settlement pattern is so dispersed that members do notconstitute a compact market from which ethnic retailers can benefit. They mayhave low purchasing power, the community may be too small to support ethnicbusinesses relying on 'internal' custom and cultural products may be few orhard to market profitably.

We have already noted that in some circumstances ethnic business people maytrade effectively in the wider market - the notion of 'middleman minorities'whose members make a living in this way (Bonacich 1973) reflects the wide-spread nature of this practice. Successful penetration of the open marketclearly enhances the prospects for business growth and success, if for no otherreason than that it is a much bigger market. Analysis turns, therefore, ondefining the circumstances in which minority entrepreneurs can successfullycompete with established businesses in the wider market. The development ofAsian-owned retail stores in Britain not only in Asian areas but also in whitesuburbia suggests that where ethnic resources are utilised this can be achieved.In some of the main areas of minority business, especially retailing, however, itis not only ethnic entrepreneurs but the small business sector as a whole whichhas been finding it impossible to compete with large firms. This is particularlytrue in Britain, where 'corner-shop' retailing has collapsed in the post-waryears and where the small firms sector as a whole is smaller than in almostevery other country in Western Europe (Boissevain 1984).

Becoming sufficiently large within the 'protected' ethnic sector to remaincompetitive when expanding into the wider market may be a hard path tofollow. Success may depend on whether goods or services are marketed to thepublic or to other businesses or to the public sector. In each of these cases, tobeeffective a business will have to disturb existing purchasing patterns and over-come any reluctance to trade with ethnic or racial minorities - the practice ofwhite salesmen being used by Indian clothing factories to sell to white stores

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suggests that this may be a real problem not only where the public are con-cerned but in industrial marketing as well.

(Hi) Constraints. An indication of the constraints likely to be faced inoperating in the wider market (as well as the ethnic market) has already beengiven. It should be stressed that the effectiveness of minority business may alsobe reduced by the operation of constraints of other kinds. Indeed, much of theliterature on ethnic business is concerned with assessing how far minority firmsare more constrained in terms of access to finance, supplies, premises andmarkets than other small businesses. (See Wilson below.)

Our concern so far has been to set out a framework within which minoritybusiness activity can be interpreted. We have shown that it may reflect eitherconstrained access to the labour market or the successful use of the resourcesopen to ethnic entrepreneurs to take advantage of business opportunities with-out being held back by external constraints. In the second half of the paper weexamine the balance of advantage to the various parties involved, again settingout an overall perspective but at the same time using the approach to interpretethnic business development in Britain up to the present time.

2. Ethnic business: the balance of advantage(a) Ethnic entrepreneursIt is clear from the earlier discussion that whether it is in the interests ofminority group members to set up in business depends wholly on the context inwhich this takes place. For some it has proved a real avenue to achievement,but there are many others for whom self-employment represents a precariousattempt to make a living on the margins of the economy, when access to moreproductive areas is blocked. The papers in this section illustrate some of themain links between the structure of ethnic communities in Britain and thepattern of business activity. A brief anticipation of some of these links allows ussome understanding of the kinds of business opportunities that are likely to beavailable.

Jones reminds us that one of the main features of the settlement of minoritiesfrom the New Commonwealth in Britain is the high degree of residentialconcentration. We have identified this as a factor making for effective tradingwithin the ethnic community. Indeed, Foner (1979) pointed to the marketprovided by the large concentration of the black population within cities in theUnited States as one of the factors helping to explain why Caribbean immi-grants have a reputation in American cities for success in business which isabsent in the British context. (There are, of course, many examples to showthat the mere fact of a large, ethnically homogeneous market does not guaran-tee commercial success for traders within the ethnic community.) But is theremore ethnic business in those areas like Bradford, from which Jones' materialis drawn, where levels of ethnic segregation are particularly high? TheNational Dwelling and Household Survey (NDHS) showed that in 1977/78 theproportion of Asian household heads in any kind of business (including self-employment) was slightly less than the figure for the white population (8.7 percent as against 9.6 per cent), when we might have expected it to be higher. Havethe opportunities provided by such residential concentrations of Asians as thatin Bradford been seized? Do those Asians who have settled in Bradford, mostof them from a background of peasant farming in Pakistan, have the humancapital, or indeed the desire, to take full advantage of internal businessopportunities?

Conversely, the higher the degree of residential concentration, the moredependent are those setting up business ventures (in retailing, for instance)outside ethnic areas on custom from the white majority. Are those who havecome to Britain from a trading background, as in East Africa, and who aresomewhat more educated and Anglicised, in a better position to exploit oppor-

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tunities outside areas of Asian settlement? While we have noted that businessdevelopment may be easier in communities showing a high degree of internalsolidarity, the benefits in terms of access to labour and finance from within thecommunity may apply equally where there is a greater degree of scattering overresidential areas. For example, the substantial Indian and Pakistani businesscommunities in Manchester have emerged from a pattern of relatively dis-persed settlement (Ward, Nowikowski and Fenton 1981; Werbner 1979). Asimilar argument could be put with regard to the development of Jewishbusiness in Britain over the past century.

Jones points to the enlargement of areas of Afro-Caribbean concentration aswell, but there is a lesser degree of segregation among West Indians in Britainand in areas of concentrated settlement, many of them council estates, there isless easy access to retail sites and to cheap, old industrial premises (Ward andReeves 1980). The scope for ethnic minorities to bring about a transformationof economic activity in the locality is much greater in areas of old privatehousing and shopping, most of which are centres of Asian rather than WestIndian settlement.

Leicester is a good example of the latter since, despite the presence of an Afro-Caribbean population of 5,000, it is basically a centre of Indian settlement.Furthermore, it has acquired a popular image as a centre of thriving anddynamic Asian business, in part, no doubt, through its role as a major receptionarea for East African Asians (in fact, a large majority of Asian.immigrants inLeicester came direct from India). Aldrich and his colleagues have alreadyshown that the stereotype of flourishing Asian businesses does not representthe real situation, at least among retailers in Leicester (Aldrich et al. 1981).Clark and Rughani analyse the situation among a different stratum of thebusiness population, manufacturers and wholesalers, and reveal a quitedifferent picture, thus illustrating Aldrich's observation that the returns avail-able to ethnic entrepreneurs depend on the market niche they select. Lowreturns for retailers imply that there are too many businesses chasing the ethnictrade, that there is insufficient wealth in the community properly to supportthe quantity of retailers (see Sills, Tarpey and Golding), or that jobs are difficultto get and shopkeeping is an easy area of business to enter.

But whereas Aldrich and his colleagues showed that Asian retailing inLeicester was concentrated in areas of ethnic settlement, the manufacturersdescribed by Clark and Rughani are much more oriented to the wider market.Only about half of the firms serviced the local ethnic market: all those manu-facturing food, half of those in knitwear or textiles but none of those inengineering. As many firms were at the other end of the spectrum and hadcustomers in the wider market on a national basis. Thus, while some businessesstarted in the ethnic sector, they were well on the way towards taking advantageof opportunities for expansion in the open market.

Ethnic manufacturing appears not to be so well developed in many other areas,indicating that it is as dangerous to generalise from the pattern of business inone locality as it is from retailing to ethnic business as a whole. Generalisationsabout the business performance, actual or potential, of different minoritiesshould equally not be made without caution. Ward and Reeves (1980),summarising the literature on minority business in Britain, showed a higherrate of involvement in business on the part of Asians than West Indians, bothas employers and as self-employed. But Brooks argues, on the basis of surveydata from Lambeth, that the potential for Afro-Caribbean business develop-ment is greater than among the Asian community which, in Lambeth at least,is concentrated on a narrow range of retail activities. Whereas many Asians inbusiness in Lambeth were 'overqualified' for petty retailing, business develop-ment was improving the employment status of the West Indians.

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Thus, at this early stage in research on ethnic business in Britain it is prematureto make generalisations about the national picture. Certainly there are indica-tions of business opportunities being seized and of steady progress in growthand profitability. It would be difficult to argue that the firms in Clark andRughani's sample were not acting in their economic interests in joining thepetty bourgeoisie in Leicester. Indeed, some of them seem to be on their way tothe ranks of'big business'. On the other hand, many ethnic shopkeepers work-ing long hours, for whom survival is success, could expect a greater economicreturn if they were in stable employment. What is required is more studiesshowing the relationship between the structure of particular ethnic com-munities and business performance in areas of minority settlement in Britain.

(b) Other interested partiesA wide range of parties have an interest in the outcome of ethnic business,apart from the entrepreneurs and their families. These include other membersof ethnic groups, the rest of the business community, including majority firmsin direct competition, and government at national and local level. It is beyondthe scope of this overview to give a detailed consideration of these interests -indeed the material is not available to allow this. All that is possible here and inthe final section is a brief consideration of the benefits likely to flow to thewider ethnic community and to government from ethnic business. It will besuggested, though firm conclusions are not possible, that benefits to the ethniccommunity as a whole are less than might be expected, while benefits togovernment are more than is commonly assumed.

The main evidence on the first point is the material on the Asian community ininner Leicester contained in the paper by Silis, Tarpey and Golding. Thisreveals the sheer scale of disadvantage experienced by Asian households com-pared with the local population. Clearly the existence of a thriving businesssector, as exemplified by Clark and Rughani, has little impact on the widerethnic community, whose members are distinguished by higher levels ofunemployment than their white counterparts, lower status jobs (more than fourin five being in manual employment), lower pay, a lower ratio of wage earnersto dependants and a heavy reliance on social security benefits. The 'glitter ofprosperity', they argue, becomes on closer inspection a 'hollow facade'. Theyconclude that, 'although many Asians have fostered successful enterprises,commercial success is both marginal and constrained'. The low purchasingpower of the Asian community limits the profitability of those Asianbusinesses dependent on ethnic custom (particularly the retailers, for whomAldrich and his colleagues showed a tendency to low profit margins).

The expanding manufacturing firms, however, were decreasingly dependent onethnic custom; and, while they may have employed ethnic labour, most of thedirect benefits of the business in all probability were concentrated on a muchnarrower range of kin and associates. In like manner, the rapid emergence of astrong Indian clothing industry in the West Midlands in the last five years,while it has provided employment for a large proportion of women andincreasing numbers of female school-leavers within the community, hasprobably had little impact on the community overall in other respects. Thus,the existence of a thriving business sector does not discount the possibility of alarge, poor, working (or not working) population in an ethnic community. Oneof the most valuable topics for future research, then, would be a detailedinvestigation of the relationship between ethnic businesses and the interests ofdifferent sections of the wider ethnic community.

(c) Interventions to encourage ethnic businessIn previous sections we have noted that other interests are involved in ethnicbusiness, government for example, and the rest of the business sector. An indi-cation of this is the range of interventions made by parties interested in encour-aging ethnic entrepreneurs. This has been a particular feature in the United

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States, where the tradition of positive discrimination in favour of smallbusiness as a whole has made it easier to develop policies and direct resourcesspecifically to minority businesses, which are still mostly small.

The interests of big business are worthy of detailed consideration. In Britainsome of the largest firms have shown an interest in sponsoring the work of localenterprise trusts which stimulate economic activity in the whole of the smallfirms sector. In the United States some of the support by big business hasspecifically benefited minority enterprise (as, for example, with the sponsor-ship by General Motors of a Minority Enterprise Small Business InvestmentCompany (MESBIQ).

There are also opportunities for Management Centres and Business StudiesDepartments to carry out research, training and consultancy designed to fostergood business practice among minority entrepreneurs. Indeed, it would bevaluable to have an academic centre where expertise in minority businesswould be concentrated, and which would engage in the training of trainers,encourage the circulation of research results and case studies of minoritybusiness for training purposes, analyse existing policies and identify opportu-nities for intervention by government and other bodies in support of minoritybusiness.

But the key interest involved in ethnic business outside the minority entre-preneur and his/her family is the government, national and local. Sawyerrrefers to some of the forms that policy in this area has taken, in particular theprovision of loans, access to government contracts and investment in trainingand business advisory services. The underlying philosophy and details ofpractical measures to further minority business in the United States are con-tained in a recent White House press statement (17 December 1982). In Britainthere is no tradition of positive discrimination of this kind. Instead the prevail-ing political philosophy cautions against any specific form of assistance toparticular target groups.

In local authorities, however, there are more signs of policies devoted to theencouragement of black business. Brooks, for example, sets out the mainelements of the black business policy recently developed by Lambeth BoroughCouncil. But the implementation of such programmes is not without difficulty.They are more likely to emerge from Labour-controlled councils, but Labourcouncils are less positive towards the traditional small firms sector, so thatprogrammes to support black business are particularly likely to be seen asfavouring black at the expense of white small firms, and even as illegal in con-travening the Race Relations Act (Birmingham Evening Mail, 12 and 16 May1983). Yet it is government that benefits most from the ethnic business sector.For the establishment of enterprises and the engagement of labour, especiallyamong ethnic minorities, reduces the burden of social security payments,enhances social stability and offers the prospect of wealth creation, on whichthe future of the economy depends.

There is, however, little sign in the papers that follow that governmentinitiatives to date have made any real impact on the situation of minority firms.For example, the change of emphasis following the publication of the LabourGovernment's White Paper, Policy for the Inner Cities, in 1977, towards theencouragement of enterprise in inner areas does not seem to have resulted sofar in the economic regeneration that was intended. At least this is the conclu-sion of Sills, Tarpey and Golding in their profile of the Asian community ininner Leicester. But a policy of directing resources towards particular areas ofneed may lead to greater opportunities for the encouragement of minoritybusiness, if full advantage is taken of the discretion that is provided under thisheading: ethnic entrepreneurs, for example, are more likely to be interested ininvesting in the inner city than their white counterparts.

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Again, government, local and national, has expanded the range of businessadvisory services. But firms covered in the surveys of minority businessreported on below appear not so much resistant to business advice as unawareof the existence of such services and of the useful role they could play (Clarkand Rughani; Brooks). Yet Wilson shows that it is the lack of the services thatappropriate advisers could offer Afro-Caribbean entrepreneurs that impedestheir business development: and Brooks concludes that black business peopleare well disposed towards advice and training which is seen as relevant. Itseems likely, therefore, that much of the fault lies in the content and marketingof advisory services. This is an area being given particular emphasis in govern-ment policy in the United States and one in which a greater investment bygovernment in Britain could prove well worth while.

It is fair to state in conclusion that policies to encourage minority business havenot proved an unqualified success (Select Committee on Small Business 1979).But while the contribution made by black business to the American economyhas not expanded in recent years (Urban Institute 1980), it is not easy to assesshow much less it would have achieved in the absence of government support.Indeed, the same charge could be laid against policy in other areas on bothsides of the Atlantic. If government has a strong interest in seeing the ethnicsector of business successful, the implication is not that such support should bewithheld but that interventions should be carefully appraised, in Britain andelsewhere, and lessons learnt and applied to future support programmes.

ReferencesH. E. Aldrich. J. C. Cater, T. P. Jones and D. McEyoy (1981), 'Business Development and Self-Segregation: Asian Enterprises in Three British Cities', in C. Peach, V. Robinson and S. Smith(eds.). Ethnic Segregation in Cities. London, Croom Helm, pp. 170-190.J. Boissevain (1984), 'Small Entrepreneurs in Contemporary Europe', in R. Ward and R. Jenkins(eds.). Ethnic Communities in Business: Strategies for Economic Survival. Cambridge UniversityPress.E. Bonacich (1973), 'A Theory of Middlemen Minorities', American Sociological Review, 38, pp.583-594.N. Foner (1979). 'West Indians in New York City and London: A Comparative Analysis',International Migration Review, 13, 2, pp. 284-295.G. Mars and R. Ward (1984), 'Ethnic Business Development in Britain: Opportunities andResources', in R. Ward and R. Jenkins (eds.), Ethnic Communities in Business: Strategies forEconomic Survival. London, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).A. Niehoff and J. Niehoff (1960), East Indians in the West Indies. Milwaukee, Wisconsin,Milwaukee Public Museum.Policy for the Inner Cities (1977), Cmnd. 6845, London, HMSO.Select Committee on Small Business, US Senate (1979), Discussion and Comment on the MajorIssues facing Small Businesses: A Report of the Select Committee on Small Business: US Senate tothe Delegates of the White House Conference on Small Business, 4 December 1979, Washington,US Government Printing Office.Urban Institute (1980), Trends in Racial Disparities During the 1970s. Washington, UrbanInstitute.R. Ward, S. Nowikowski and M. Fenton (1981), 'Settlement in the Suburbs: An Analysis of Asiansin Manchester', International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, 18, 1 and 2, pp. 103-134.R. Ward and F. Reeves (1980), 'West Indians in Business in Britain' (Memorandum submitted tothe Home Affairs Committee Race Relations and Immigration Sub-Committee, Session 1980/81),London, House of Commons, 15 December.P. Werbner (1979), 'Avoiding the Ghetto: Pakistani Migrants and Settlement Shifts in Manchester',New Community, 7, 3, pp. 376-389.

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