227
Knjižne ocene h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 3 9 8 6 / d d . 2 0 2 2 . 2 . 1 5
Elena Sommer, Social Capital as a Resource for Migrant Entrepreneur-
ship: Self-Employed Migrants from the Former Soviet Union in Germany
Munich: Springer VS, 2020, 331 pp.
According to the author, this book aims to explore the accessibility and use of social 
capital within and outside the migrant community from the former Soviet Union 
(FSU) for migrant enterprises that operate in various markets over time. Elena 
Sommer’s book aims to shed light on a phenomenon that has spawned an interna-
tional lexicon of words and phrases that include “ethnic entrepreneurship,” “ethnic 
business,” or “ethnic economy,” “middleman minority,” “sojourners,” “transculturality,” 
“orthodox ethnicity,” and “reactive ethnicity.” In her exploratory research, based on 
evidence from 62 qualitative interviews, Sommer examines the usage of social capi-
tal for entrepreneurial practices of self-employed migrants from the former Soviet 
Union in Germany. The study resulted from the author’s doctoral research at Bremen 
International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS). It was designed to show 
how business-related social relationships are influenced by a company’s marketing 
policy and access to specific entrepreneurial social networks. The author investigates 
the types of relationship networks migrants use as a platform for creating and grow-
ing small enterprises and how migrants’ entrepreneurial social networks evolve.
The book starts with a brief overview of migrant business research. Sommer has 
deliberately formulated the study questions in the introductory section to facilitate 
the reader’s active interest in the rigorous contemplation that the book is supposed 
to introduce. The introduction is followed by Chapter 2, which delves into the main 
theoretical principles and analytical observations in migrant entrepreneurship, 
social capital, and migration studies that are important to studying migrant entre-
preneurs’ network features. The chapter ends with an outline of the study’s research 
issues and methodological framework.
Chapter 3 gives a short description of the migration of former Soviet Union citi-
zens to Germany, accompanied by an overview of analytical studies on their social 
and labor market integration. The final subsection discusses results from previous 
studies on self-employment among former Soviet Union migrants.
Chapter 4 describes the research structure, sample, and methodology. It 
begins with a definition of the terms used in the research design, followed by an 
explanation of the chosen environment for the study and the rationale for using 
a qualitative method. This chapter concludes with the data processing methods 
applied in the study.
Chapter 5 focuses on the economic operations of the migrant market from the 
former Soviet Union, which can be narrowly defined as migrant retail enterprises 
with a largely co-ethnic clientele. It begins with an overview of the key features of 
the Russian-speaking migrant market in two German cities: Düsseldorf and Wald-
bröl. In particular, the author notes that the Russian-speaking migrant market is a 
social space that fosters internal bridging between different subgroups of the same 
228
Book Reviews
migrant community and allows for interaction among migrant subgroups. In addi-
tion, the chapter provides a data-driven grouping of migrant sector companies into 
four groups, highlighting the key characteristics of their services, customer base, 
and professional relationships. Motivations for starting a company in the migrant 
industry, customer recruiting methods, and typical social capital attributes and func-
tions in this market segment are also addressed.
The use of social capital by migrant enterprises in the diverse sector simulta-
neously serving co-ethnic and general population customers is demonstrated in 
Chapter 6. It begins by demonstrating techniques necessary for gaining access to 
native clients used by migrant businesses that began in the migrant market and 
then expanded to a larger market. It is followed by a segment concentrating on 
companies that began their work in the conventional market but later migrated to 
the mixed market after recognizing the financial benefits of approaching co-ethnics 
as a separate client community. The chapter ends with an example of an entrepre-
neurial network in a mixed market.
In Chapter 7, the author illustrates the use of social capital by companies oper-
ating in the mass market with a large general population clientele. The chapter 
shows how access to and use of social capital by companies working in the mass 
market varies between businesses offering knowledge-intensive services in high-
skilled sectors and businesses in low-entry barrier sectors. The core features of 
self-employed social capital in these two divisions of the mainstream economy are 
illustrated, supplemented by two illustrative descriptions of business network maps 
in the mainstream market.
Chapter 8 looks at the different forms of social capital that FSU migrants use as 
they partake in various transnational entrepreneurial practices. The types of transna-
tional economic activities discovered in empirical evidence are listed first, followed 
by reasons for participating in or not participating in transnational economic activ-
ities. The chapter then reflects on the empirically derived forms of transnational 
entrepreneurship practices and their main social capital characteristics. The chapter 
comes to a close with an example of case analysis.
Chapter 9 summarizes the study’s conclusions and flaws and makes recommen-
dations for potential studies.
Overall, Sommer’s Social Capital as a Resource for Migrant Entrepreneurship is 
important reading for both scholarly and business audiences. The writer has gone 
to great lengths to combine the inherent scientific vocabulary in social science with 
straightforward language that makes the topic easy to understand. The author has 
also succeeded in presenting migrant entrepreneurship as both science and activity.
Yulia Kryvenko