Minority entrepreneurship in Switzerland. The challenges and needs of Brazilian women entrepreneurs

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Author (Corporation)
Publication date
2023
Typ of student thesis
Course of study
Type
04B - Conference paper
Editor (Corporation)
Supervisor
Parent work
Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Special issue
DOI of the original publication
Link
Series
Series number
Volume
1
Issue / Number
Pages / Duration
607-616
Patent number
Publisher / Publishing institution
Universidade Portucalense
Place of publication / Event location
Porto
Edition
Version
Programming language
Assignee
Practice partner / Client
Abstract
The number of Brazilian citizens in Switzerland has risen significantly over the past decades by factor 24 compared to the total foreign population, which grew by factor 2.5. As with many migrant groups, integration into the labour market is difficult. This can lead to a higher number of people choosing to start their own business. Brazilians in their home country are more entrepreneurial than Swiss people and among Brazilian women, 17.3% are entrepreneurially active. This can partly be explained with less options on the labour market – a challenge that Brazilian women also experience in Switzerland. Therefore, entrepreneurship also became a viable career option abroad. Little is known about neither the businesses, the challenges, and the needs of female Brazilian entrepreneurs, nor of female entrepreneurs of other minority groups. This paper looked at these points to find out how they can be supported best to enhance their businesses. The findings will be of use for entrepreneurs themselves, as well as for supporting organisations to adapt their offerings. To get the required insights, we took a quantitative approach and surveyed 54 Brazilian women in Switzerland with an online questionnaire. The participants were members of a Brazilian women business club. The results were analysed using SPSS. The entrepreneurs came to Switzerland mainly for love and family reasons. The businesses are small, mainly targeting the Brazilian community and only a small minority can sustain themselves from their self-employment alone. While the financial success is rather low, the personal satisfaction of having a business is very high. The biggest challenges are finding customers, where also the biggest need for support is. The results show that the support structures are not accessible enough for founders from minority groups and that offerings need to be adjusted to have a broader reach.
Keywords
Subject (DDC)
330 - Wirtschaft
Project
Event
18th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Exhibition start date
Exhibition end date
Conference start date
21.09.2023
Conference end date
22.09.2023
Date of the last check
ISBN
978-1-914587-83-2
978-1-914587-82-5
ISSN
Language
English
Created during FHNW affiliation
Yes
Strategic action fields FHNW
Publication status
Published
Review
Peer review of the complete publication
Open access category
Diamond
License
'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/'
Citation
MEYER, Dario, Therese SCHMUTZ und Rolf MEYER, 2023. Minority entrepreneurship in Switzerland. The challenges and needs of Brazilian women entrepreneurs. In: Fernando MOREIRA und Shital JAYANTILAL (Hrsg.), Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Porto: Universidade Portucalense. 2023. S. 607–616. ISBN 978-1-914587-83-2. Verfügbar unter: https://doi.org/10.26041/fhnw-7440