Beyond co-ethnicity: dual cultural identity and network activation in immigrant entrepreneurship

The mixed embeddedness perspective has advanced understanding of immigrant entrepreneurship, yet it often treats embeddedness as structurally given, leaving unexplained why entrepreneurs within similar or shared opportunity structures achieve divergent market-positioning outcomes. This study examines how migratory trajectories shape dual cultural identity configurations, and how these configurations serve as mechanisms for negotiating embeddedness and activating business networks. Drawing on interviews with 38 Japanese Brazilian entrepreneurs across four migratory trajectories, it develops an integrated framework bridging social identity theory and immigrant entrepreneurship. The framework identifies three theoretically derived paths: an anchored-identity path, in which entrepreneurs’ culturally anchored identities produce localized network activation; a legitimacy-seeking path, in which asymmetric dual identities drive sequential activation to overcome foreignness barriers; and a dual-competence path, in which balanced dual identities enable simultaneous activation of ethnic and mainstream networks, cultural brokerage, and hybrid market creation. Each path emerges through distinct mechanisms linking dual cultural identity formation, identity-based network activation, and market positioning. The study refines mixed embeddedness by showing that embeddedness is an ongoing, socially negotiated process dependent on signalling authentic in-group belonging, and reframes dual cultural identity as a dynamic strategic resource whose value is conditioned by sectoral legitimacy requirements.