PurposeThe study aims to explore migrant entrepreneurship in a hitherto overlooked demographic, namely, migrants who have moved away from core-states and towards an economically less developed area. In particular, the study aims to critically evaluate to what extent mainstream theories and findings regarding migrants' ethnic division of labour are applicable in such an “upside down” migratory context.Design/methodology/approachThe study qualitatively analyses 41 privileged core-state (UK, USA and Germany, among others) migrant entrepreneurs who have migrated to Wroclaw, Poland, and positions these findings against a second subject group of 24 migrant entrepreneurs from periphery-states (namely, Ukraine and Belarus).FindingsThe study finds that, while the situations of the periphery-state subject group largely lend support to the mainstream literature of migrant entrepreneurship, for those from the core-states subject group it is an altogether different story, whereby these migrants were found to be less likely to employ co-ethnic labour and, instead, were more likely to opt for native, Polish labour.Research limitations/implicationsThe study's findings begin to question the universality of migrant entrepreneurship theories which have been formulated within mainstream (semi-)periphery-to-core dominant-subordinate contexts. This, in turn, carries implications for policymakers outside of core-states who may need to carefully consider if such theories are applicable to their specific contexts.Originality/valueThis study not only helps to address a gap in the literature surrounding migrant entrepreneurship within Poland but also a gap within the wider literature in terms of migrant entrepreneurship outside of core-state contexts.

中文翻译：

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波兰享有特权的核心国家移民企业家：反向的民族经济？

目的本研究旨在探讨迄今为止被忽视的人口群体中的移民创业，即从核心国家迁往经济欠发达地区的移民。特别是，该研究旨在批判性地评估关于移民种族分工的主流理论和研究结果在多大程度上适用于这种“颠倒”的移民背景。设计/方法/方法该研究定性分析了 41 个特权核心国家（英国、美国和德国等）移居波兰弗罗茨瓦夫的移民企业家，并将这些调查结果与来自边缘国家（即乌克兰和白俄罗斯）的 24 名移民企业家组成的第二个主题组进行对比。研究发现，虽然外围国家主体群体的情况在很大程度上支持了移民创业的主流文献，但对于来自核心国家主体群体的人来说，情况则完全不同，据此发现这些移民不太可能雇用共同创业者。种族劳工，相反，他们更有可能选择本地的波兰劳工。研究局限/影响研究结果开始质疑移民创业理论的普遍性上下文。反过来，这对核心国家之外的政策制定者产生了影响，他们可能需要仔细考虑这些理论是否适用于其特定背景。