Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Small Business and Entrepreneurship in Sparse Ecosystems: Immigrant Ventures, Innovation and Resilience in Peripheries

The Arctic and Arctic-like remote regions are undergoing profound demographic, economic, environmental and institutional changes. These remote peripheral regions are increasingly characterized by demographic decline, acute labour shortages, constrained access to essential services, and underdeveloped (thin) entrepreneurial ecosystems with limited institutional density and support structures. At the same time, they are becoming spaces of new economic opportunity, fueled by investments in tourism, renewable energy, logistics, infrastructure and digital transformation.

In this context, immigrant entrepreneurs are becoming key players in sustaining and revitalizing remote communities. They create businesses in key sectors such as food, nutrition, logistics, tourism, digital services and circular economy solutions, thereby promoting local employment, innovation and community resilience. However, their role has been understudied in mainstream entrepreneurship research, which has largely focused on metropolitan areas and resource-rich ecosystems.

This special issue seeks to advance understanding of how immigrant entrepreneurship develops in sparse, remote, and institutionally thin environments where entrepreneurs operate in the face of geographical isolation, climate uncertainty, regulatory complexity, and fragmented support systems. It also highlights the growing importance of Arctic regions as sites of geopolitical change, climate change adaptation, and socioeconomic transition.

We particularly encourage publications that examine how immigrant entrepreneurs mobilize social, cultural, and symbolic resources, navigate indigenous and settler governance systems, and develop adaptive strategies in response to environmental and institutional uncertainty. Digitalization, platform-based business models, and remote work are also shaping the possibilities for entrepreneurship in these contexts.

By combining perspectives from entrepreneurship, migration studies, regional development, and sustainable development transitions, this special issue seeks to develop new theoretical insights into entrepreneurial ecosystems in peripheral and extreme contexts, including extensions of mixed immersion, resilience theory, and ecosystem thinking.

We welcome empirical, conceptual, comparative, and policy-oriented contributions that contribute to a deeper understanding of how immigrant enterprises shape—and are shaped by the Arctic and other global peripheries.

Theoretical Contributions and Research Opportunities

Studying immigrant venturing in Arctic contexts offers unique opportunities to develop new theoretical insights based on previous entrepreneurship literature, for example, (not limited to)

• Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Thin Markets (Bertoni et al., 2019)
• Expanding Mixed Embeddedness Theory (Kloostermann & Rath, 1999)
• Peripherality, Rurality, Spatiality and Mobility (Munkejord, 2017; Xu & Dobson, 2019)
• Micro-resilience and Sustainable Entrepreneurship (Muñoz & Cohen, 2018)
• Inclusion in Small Communities: Panacea concept (Yeamin et al., 2025; Yeasmin, 2016)
• Entrepreneurial opportunity (Davidsson et al., 2020)

Objectives of the Special Issue

This SI aims to:

• Develop new theoretical and empirical insights into immigrant venturing in Arctic, Arctic-like, and remote contexts.
• Examine resource mobilisation, opportunity creation and innovation under extreme spatial and institutional constraints.
• Illuminate the lived experiences and strategies of immigrant entrepreneurs.
• Explore Indigenous–immigrant interactions and collaborative entrepreneurial models.
• Assess the role of immigrant ventures in demographic renewal and regional sustainability.
• Offer policy-relevant knowledge for regional development agencies, migration authorities, and entrepreneurial support systems.

Suggested themes and topics for submission

We encourage conceptual, empirical, methodological and policy-oriented papers on topics including but not limited to:

• Entrepreneurial experiences

- Identifying opportunities in extreme environments

-Seasonal, climatic and infrastructure constraints

-Hybrid identities, transnational strategies and placemaking

• Institutions, governance and ecosystems

- Indigenous and migrant cooperation

-Local development agencies and support structures

- Impacts of regulatory and migration policies

• Regional development and sustainability

-Migrant enterprises in rural revitalization

-Circular economy models and sustainable business practices

-Tourism, food systems and creative industries

• Technology and digitalization

-Digital entrepreneurship in the Arctic

-Remote work and hybrid business models

-E-commerce ecosystems in remote areas

• Comparative and global perspectives

-Arctic comparative studies (Nordic, North America, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Iceland)

-Comparative perspectives from other global peripheries