Migrant African women entrepreneurship in times of adversity

Ogundana, O ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0121-7231, Simba, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0276-8211 and Ikhile, D, 2025. Migrant African women entrepreneurship in times of adversity. In: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference (ISBE 2025), Glasgow, Scotland, 5-6 November 2025.

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Abstract

This paper examines how adversity structures the entrepreneurial practices of African migrant women in the United Kingdom. Drawing on 36 in-depth interviews conducted between May 2024 and June 2025 across London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Cardiff, the study employs the Gioia methodology to inductively theorise women’s experiences of exclusion and resilience. Findings reveal that adversity is not merely a contextual constraint but a constitutive force that shapes motivations, strategies, and outcomes. Six aggregate dimensions emerge: adapting business models during crisis; financial struggles and exclusion from capital; social and community networks as enablers; discrimination, bias, and stereotyping; regulatory and infrastructural barriers; and workload, wellbeing, and persistence. These insights extend mixed embeddedness, intersectionality, and identity-work frameworks by demonstrating that crises dynamically reconfigure opportunity spaces, magnify inequalities, and intensify legitimacy struggles. The study advances a crisis-sensitive, intersectional framework for migrant women’s entrepreneurship and highlights the collective, relational nature of resilience.

Item Type:	Conference contribution
Creators:	Ogundana, O., Simba, A. and Ikhile, D.
Date:	November 2025
Identifiers:	Number Type 2531623 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	19 Nov 2025 14:36
Last Modified:	19 Nov 2025 14:36
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54778

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