An Investigation into Small Business Activities of\ud Croatian Migrants in Australia

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) play a substantial role in the Australian economy. They are the key generators of employment and income, and drivers of innovation and growth (OECD 2009). In Australia, the growing participation of ethnic minorities in self-employment has been a noticeable feature of the small business arena, and has remained a topic of considerable contemporary relevance.\ud In the context of migrant entrepreneurship, several scholars have highlighted the impact of different migrant group cultures on entrepreneurship. They emphasise the importance of values such as social or business attitudes, close family and religious ties and trust, all of which enable some immigrant groups to compete successfully in business.\ud A substantial literature of ethnic business involvement exists, but comparable literature of Croatian migrants and their role in local community business development is very sparse. The objective of this research is to analyse the phenomenon of ethnic business creation amongst the Croatian ethnic community in Australia. The main emphasis is on finding the motives for the actual process of starting a business, focusing on differences between two different arrival groups, which I have called the early arrival and later arrival groups (pre-90s and post-90s). Furthermore, the study explores the migration experience of these two groups in Australia, concentrating on the fact that the two groups are from different socio-economic backgrounds and are thus affected in different ways