Segmented Network Embeddedness: Influence of Cultural Capital on Social Networks and Business Models Among Chinese Entrepreneurs in Ikebukuro,Tokyo

Abstract

This study examines how social network practices among Chinese entrepreneurs in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, reflect differentiated migration experiences and class resources. Drawing on semistructured interviews with 42 first-generational Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs conducted in 2023, it analyzes how different levels of cultural capital shape patterns of social network embeddedness and, in turn, business activities. Entrepreneurs with limited cultural capital exhibit ethnic embeddedness, which is related to homogeneity in business models. By contrast, those with higher levels of cultural capital demonstrate flexible embeddedness across both co-ethnic and inter-ethnic networks, enabling access to diverse business information and ideas, which leads to more differentiated and complex business models. This study suggests that under conditions of institutional openness combined with cultural closure, variations in cultural capital segment Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs’ patterns of network embeddedness, calling for a re-examination of ethnicity not as a given organizing principle but as a differentiated and contingent resource in immigrant entrepreneurship.