Abstract:

This article examines how Chinese-owned food businesses in post-pandemic Britain adapted to economic disruption following COVID-19. Drawing on qualitative interviews with supermarket and restaurant owners and customers, the study extends mixed embeddedness theory by conceptualising migrant enterprise resilience as a hybrid governance configuration. We introduce the concept of resilient hybrid embeddedness to capture how firms strategically calibrate economic pragmatism, cultural reproduction, selective digital integration, and informal network coordination. Cultural practices such as festival reproduction, linguistic familiarity, and authenticity signalling function not merely as identity markers but as demand-stabilising economic resources. At the same time, cautious engagement with digital platforms and inter-business cooperation reduces cost exposure and transaction uncertainty. The findings challenge enclave–assimilation binaries by demonstrating that post-pandemic resilience emerges from dynamic hybridity rather than structural insulation. The article contributes to migration scholarship by reconceptualising embeddedness as an adaptive governance mechanism under conditions of systemic crisis.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Entrepreneurship

Keywords: Entrepreneurship Theories;International Entrepreneurship;Informal Economy & the "Dark Side" of Entrepreneurship

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Prof Zheng Wang