Skilled Migrants’ Well-Being Crises and Entrepreneurial Entry: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Western societies address skill shortages via skilled migration programs, primarily utilized by ethnic minorities.
Many first-generation skilled professional migrants (FGSPM), lacking prior entrepreneurial experience,
choose entrepreneurship over employment in the host country. Understanding the psychological reasons
underpinning this choice necessitates scholarly focus. Through an interdisciplinary literature review, we theorize
a conceptual framework wherein the post-migration experiences of FGSPM engender a eudaimonic identity
(EI) and eudaimonic well-being (EWB) crisis, which serves as the antecedent for entrepreneurial entry.
This entry decision is enabled by the disposition of FGSPM and involves leveraging their unique human capital.
Thus, entrepreneurship supports in resolving the FGSPM’s EI and EWB crisis. This framework contributes
to migrant entrepreneurship literature by highlighting the EI and EWB crisis as the precursor to entrepreneurial
entry, preceding disposition, and guiding future empirical research.