Abstract

There is considerable interest among European politicians and policymakers on how to
integrate migrants in the local and national economy. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative
interviews with 20 owners of Sub-Saharan African migrant family businesses (SSAMBs) in
the UK, this article critically examines why SSAMBs fail or underperform. This investigation
draws upon three streams of literature – notably migrant business failure, institutional theory
and family embeddedness. The findings highlight the challenges of doing business and the
reasons for business failure among this group. These are different from other small businesses
and include culture, family interference and ethnicity. The main contribution of the paper lies
in the development of a conceptual model that highlights the relationships between institutional
contexts and migrant family business outcomes. The model proposes that institution and family
embeddedness results in the enactment of ethnic behaviours that drives migrant businesses into
cultural markets leading to business underperformance or failure.