“As if it were home”: an exploratory study of the role of homesickness among migrant entrepreneurs
通过分析18位委内瑞拉移民创业者的口述历史，发现思乡病能成为创业构思的推动力，增强创业者的修辞技巧、情感共情和适应态度，并借助客户画像和社区认同促进创业过程。
A common pattern observed in the psychological literature on migrants is homesickness, yet there is a lack of research examining if this phenomenon has any effect in the entrepreneurship sphere. This study begins to fill this gap with an inductive approach examining the Venezuelan migratory wave in Chile. Methodologically, we conduct an oral history analysis of 18 Venezuelan entrepreneurs’ narratives to explore the reasons they built their entrepreneurial ventures and the mechanisms underlying this process. Based on our findings, we show that homesickness can become an enabler that links entrepreneurs with a (latent unsatisfied) demand by facilitating the entrepreneurial ideation process. This phenomenon occurs because the engagement between individuals is heightened when they experience homesickness. On the one hand, we notice that homesick entrepreneurs enhance three resources that contribute to the entrepreneurial ideation process: (1) rhetorical skills, (2) affective empathy, and (3) adaptive attitude. On the other hand, two features also facilitate interaction from the demand side: (1) customer persona and (2) cohesive community identity. Thus, our results suggest that migrant entrepreneurs gain trusted partners based on shared homesickness. Consequently, a more efficient and effective entrepreneurial ideation process is generated.