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Karan, Olgu (2015) Collective resource mobilisation for economic survival within the Turkish speaking communities in London. Doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University.
This study aims to generate insights into the business start-up and maintenance activities of Kurdish and Turkish business owners in catering and retail sectors in North London by utilizing a new theoretical approach influenced by Charles Tilly’s (1978) collective resource mobilisation theory. The research objectives are:
- to examine the reasons behind the formation of business start-ups for Kurdish and Turkish business owners in the catering and retail sectors;
- to identify and investigate the ways in which the ‘forms of capital’ (Bourdieu, 1986) are acquired and mobilised for starting and maintaining these businesses.
Methodologically, the research draws on extensive fieldwork with 65 participants. The thesis draws on qualitative research methods that enable the participants’ business start-up and maintenance experiences to be analysed in the context of the existing literature, and allows for the generation of a new theoretical approach to emerge based on their explanations.
The thesis makes theoretical and empirical contributions to the field of study. Empirically, it sheds light onto two ‘invisible communities’ that are largely concentrated in the catering and retail sectors. The field study for this project presents an original contribution by examining business start-up and maintenance activities of the Turkish and Kurdish communities. Theoretically, the business start-up and maintenance activities of Kurdish and Turkish business owners are analysed through the lens of collective resource mobilisation theory. This has three components: interests, mobilisation of networks and opportunity structure. The three components provide an analytical framework for examining the interplay between agency and structural influences on the start-up and maintenance activities of Kurdish and Turkish business owners.
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