This study describes the locational factors that are most valuable and useful to immigrant entrepreneurs in the Bay Area, which is also referred to as Silicon Valley in this paper. Silicon Valley is the world’s leading entrepreneurial and technological ecosystem. As such, it attracts thousands of entrepreneurs with outstanding technical skills and talent from all over the world. Through enduring leadership, Silicon Valley is able to set the pace of entrepreneurship, and the trends that emerge in this ecosystem rapidly spread to establish themselves as rules almost everywhere. Silicon Valley’s appeal to foreign entrepreneurs is based on their hopes of finding investors and markets to scale up their companies. The goal of this study is to identify the locational factors of Silicon Valley that are most valued by immigrant entrepreneurs and to classify and rank the factors that are most closely linked to the successful performance of new ventures founded by immigrant entrepreneurs. Empirical analysis was conducted in 2014 through personal interviews with 54 new ventures that were founded or co-founded by Spanish entrepreneurs in the Bay Area. A follow-up was performed in 2019 to track their performance. This sample is representative of the population of new ventures founded by Spanish entrepreneurs in the Bay Area. Eight top-ranked locational factors cited in the literature were included in the analysis model, together with variables related to the personal profile of the founding team and the markets served by the companies under analysis. After just five years (2014–2019), almost half of the companies had failed. Around 30% remained active but were failing to meet expectations, and only 12 of the 54 companies could be deemed fully successful. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) reveals some locational factors as necessary conditions: the capacity to rapidly build a solid network of investors, firms, and other stakeholders; and the unique nature of the Bay Area market, which is especially conducive to testing new products, business models, and technologies. The findings contribute to the literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems by providing new evidence of the resources and locational factors that are most valued by immigrant entrepreneurs in top entrepreneurial hubs. Several managerial implications follow directly from the findings. These implications include a ranking of the environmental factors that appeal most to immigrant entrepreneurs running high-growth new ventures, together with the conditions to which they are indifferent. This study also provides valuable clues and guidelines for policymakers to enhance their entrepreneurial hubs and make them more attractive. The principal limitation of this study is the coverage of the empirical analysis, which was based only on entrepreneurs from Spain. The intention is to expand the data set in future research by including immigrant entrepreneurs from other regions, starting with Latin American countries.

本研究描述了湾区（在本文中也称为硅谷）对移民企业家最有价值和最有用的区位因素。硅谷是全球领先的创业和技术生态系统。因此，它吸引了来自世界各地的数以千计具有杰出技术技能和人才的企业家。通过持久的领导力，硅谷能够设定创业的步伐，这个生态系统中出现的趋势迅速传播，几乎在任何地方都成为规则。硅谷对外国企业家的吸引力是基于他们希望找到投资者和市场来扩大公司规模。本研究的目的是确定移民企业家最看重的硅谷区位因素，并对与移民企业家创办的新企业的成功表现最密切相关的因素进行分类和排名。实证分析是在 2014 年通过对 54 家由西班牙企业家在湾区创立或共同创立的新企业的个人访谈进行的。2019 年进行了一次随访以跟踪他们的表现。该样本代表了西班牙企业家在湾区创立的新企业群体。分析模型中包括了文献中引用的八个排名靠前的位置因素，以及与创始团队的个人资料和被分析公司所服务的市场相关的变量。仅仅五年之后（2014-2019），几乎一半的公司都失败了。大约 30% 的公司仍然活跃，但未能达到预期，54 家公司中只有 12 家可以被视为完全成功。定性比较分析 (QCA) 揭示了一些作为必要条件的区位因素：快速建立稳固的投资者、公司和其他利益相关者网络的能力；湾区市场的独特性，特别有利于测试新产品、商业模式和技术。研究结果通过提供新的证据证明顶级创业中心的移民企业家最重视的资源和区位因素，为有关创业生态系统的文献做出了贡献。研究结果直接得出了一些管理意义。这些影响包括对经营高增长新企业的移民企业家最有吸引力的环境因素的排名，以及他们对环境漠不关心的条件。这项研究还为政策制定者提供了宝贵的线索和指导方针，以加强其创业中心并使其更具吸引力。本研究的主要限制是实证分析的覆盖面，该分析仅基于来自西班牙的企业家。目的是通过包括来自其他地区的移民企业家，从拉丁美洲国家开始，在未来的研究中扩展数据集。这项研究还为政策制定者提供了宝贵的线索和指导方针，以加强其创业中心并使其更具吸引力。本研究的主要限制是实证分析的覆盖面，该分析仅基于来自西班牙的企业家。目的是通过包括来自其他地区的移民企业家，从拉丁美洲国家开始，在未来的研究中扩展数据集。这项研究还为政策制定者提供了宝贵的线索和指导方针，以加强其创业中心并使其更具吸引力。本研究的主要限制是实证分析的覆盖面，该分析仅基于来自西班牙的企业家。目的是通过包括来自其他地区的移民企业家，从拉丁美洲国家开始，在未来的研究中扩展数据集。