| dc.description.abstract | Since the start of the conflict in Syria in March 2011, almost 4 million Syrians left the country in search for asylum, mainly in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. The escalation of the conflict in 2012, aggravated by ISIS presence in North Syria in 2014 just increased the influx of refugees in those countries. In this context, Turkey was one of the countries that adopted an “open door” policy, receiving over 1.8 million refugees since 2011. Of these, 278 thousand Syrian are accommodated in 25 camps mainly along the Turkish/Syrian border, while the other 1.6 million are considered self-settled refugees, spread among the Turkish provinces, where 330 thousand are just in Istanbul. The aim of this research was to bring more information about those Syrians who now have a business in Istanbul. Not much is known about their motivations to open a business in Istanbul, in the same way that the obstacles faced by them and their strategies to overcome them are not known.
The lack of information about Syrian refugees who own an enterprise reinforces the position of authors such as Wauters and Lambrecht (2006) and Fong et al (2007). They defend that there is not much literature about refugee entrepreneurship. This debate mostly takes place within the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship and ethnic entrepreneurship. However, there are some differences between refugees and immigrants that need to be explored, such as: lack of social network and financial resources and lack of time to plan the displacement (Wauters and Lambrecht, 2006; Fong et al, 2007). These are all aspects that were explored during this research.
This research found out that the main obstacles for Syrians to start an enterprise in Istanbul are mainly four: insufficient information about the local economy; lack of knowledge of the Turkish language; limited financial resources and restricted experience on the area in which they wanted to open a business. These obstacles can be related with their situation as refugees and the characteristics of their displacement. Since they don’t have time to plan their departure, have to leaving suddenly and they bring family members, their financial capital is compromised.
Syrian refugees are motivated to start a business mainly because of past experience with entrepreneurship. However there are a few cases of Syrians who start a business due to the lack of opportunities on the local Turkish labour market.
It was demonstrated in this research as well that co-ethnic networks play an important role when it is time to open a business. These networks are crucial to form partnerships, find qualified employees and attract a fist group of clients. Even though not all enterprises depend on Syrian clients, they still are depended of these networks in order to create partnerships and find employees. In this way Syrian enterprises assume characteristics of ethnic enterprises. This fact raises the concern regarding the possibilities for these companies to develop and grow, since they rely on a limited group of clients. Furthermore, it was proved that the legal situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey is fragile and they could be sent back to Syria at any moment. Mainly for those entrepreneurs who are registering their business and are planning to stay in Turkey, relying just in other Syrians to run the business represents a risk and limitation to the development of their enterprises.
Even though it is still early to draw conclusions about the future of these enterprises in Istanbul, based on my observations it seems that Syrian entrepreneurs are having a good restart in Istanbul. They managed to establish a business and are already making plans to open more branches or expand the business. The plans, of most of the respondents, to stay in Turkey even if the war in Syria stops, plays an important role on this decision to invest and expand their business. However, to know if they will succeed, more research is needed. | |
