{"title":"Boomerang Entrepreneurs and the Declining Home City’s Place Image: Away on the Brain Drain Flow and Back on the Homesick Flow","authors":"James M. Wilkerson, Marwan A. Wafa","doi":"10.1515/erj-2023-0304","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n \n Boomerang entrepreneurs (practicing and nascent entrepreneurs who return to their declining home cities after years away) may especially be an answer to the brain drain, suppressed innovation, and often tepid entrepreneurial ecosystem condition that plague declining cities such as U.S. Rust Belt cities. This conceptual article addresses how the declining home city’s place image might inform and promote a boomerang entrepreneur’s return migration and venturing decisions and with what implications for the place’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Even given homesickness, this kind of return migration is unlikely unless prospective boomerang entrepreneurs revise their place images of their old hometowns. We conceptually develop and support propositions on the relationships between place image and brain drain, between affect and both place image revision and entrepreneurial intentions, and between place image revision and both return migration intentions and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. We also discuss implications for microfoundations of entrepreneurial ecosystems in declining cities, place branding that can encourage boomerang entrepreneurs’ place image revision and return migration to the declining home city, and related research data collection.","PeriodicalId":45658,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship Research Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Entrepreneurship Research Journal","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/erj-2023-0304","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Boomerang entrepreneurs (practicing and nascent entrepreneurs who return to their declining home cities after years away) may especially be an answer to the brain drain, suppressed innovation, and often tepid entrepreneurial ecosystem condition that plague declining cities such as U.S. Rust Belt cities. This conceptual article addresses how the declining home city’s place image might inform and promote a boomerang entrepreneur’s return migration and venturing decisions and with what implications for the place’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Even given homesickness, this kind of return migration is unlikely unless prospective boomerang entrepreneurs revise their place images of their old hometowns. We conceptually develop and support propositions on the relationships between place image and brain drain, between affect and both place image revision and entrepreneurial intentions, and between place image revision and both return migration intentions and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. We also discuss implications for microfoundations of entrepreneurial ecosystems in declining cities, place branding that can encourage boomerang entrepreneurs’ place image revision and return migration to the declining home city, and related research data collection.
期刊介绍:
Entrepreneurship Research Journal (ERJ) was launched with an Inaugural Issue in 2011. Professor Ramona Zachary at Baruch College and Professor Chandra Mishra at Florida Atlantic University introduce a new forum for scholarly discussion on entrepreneurs and their activities, contexts, processes, strategies, and outcomes. Positioned as the premier new research journal within the field of entrepreneurship, ERJ seeks to encourage a scholarly exchange between researchers from any field of study who focus on entrepreneurs, and will include both theoretical and empirical articles, with priority being given to high quality theoretical and empirical papers that have managerial or public policy orientation as well as ramifications for entrepreneurship research overall. Topics: -Research Modeling, Design, and Methods: entrepreneurship theories and conceptualizations, entrepreneurship research methods. -The Individuals-Opportunities-Resources Nexus: nascent entrepreneurs, opportunity recognition, drivers of value creation, and emergence, innovation and technology entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial risk and reward, entrepreneurial cognition and behavior. -Inclusive of Near Environments: family entrepreneurship, networks, teams and alliances, venture capital and angel investor groups, entrepreneurial communities, hubs, clusters and public policy, social entrepreneurship. -Distinct Entrepreneurial Stage or Setting: entrepreneurial growth and strategy, boards, governance and leadership, corporate entrepreneurship, international and emerging market entrepreneurship.