The Changing Significance of Ethnic and Class Resources in Immigrant Businesses: The Case of Korean Immigrant Businesses in Chicago

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Abstract
Contemporary Korean immigrant businesses depart from the traditional patterns of immigrant businesses in two important respects. First, minority areas such as black neighborhoods are more important market places for Korean merchants than their own Korean community. Second, though ethnic solidarity and mutual cooperation among Koreans are still viable in Korean immigrant businesses, class interests and class resources are increasingly important as the basis of Korean immigrant businesses. Therefore, collective approaches to business on the basis of ascriptive ties such as extended kinship or regional ties became irrelevant for the recent Korean immigrants. Instead individualistic approaches become more significant. In order to account for the role of ethnicity and class in contemporary Korean immigrant businesses, this study attempts to assess the relative contribution of ethnic and class resources to Korean immigrant businesses and to examine how the relative significance of ethnic and class resources changes over the course of business development. Empirical results tend to support the arguments that while ethnic resources (i.e., financial resources, information or business advice one can gather from family members, friends or rotating credit associations) are important at the initial stage of business, they become irrelevant or insufficient at the advanced stage, and that class resources (i.e., individual human capital) become more important to determine the success level of business at the advanced stage of business development.

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