Exploring New Chinese Migrant Businesses in Auckland, New Zealand: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

This study examines how new Chinese migrant businesses navigate structural and operational constraints in a high-income, multicultural host-country context, with a particular focus on the role of digital embeddedness. Drawing on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 29 Chinese migrant business owners con-ducted in Auckland, New Zealand, the study explores how entrepreneurs engage with digital platforms, online networks, and digital infrastructures to address constraints related to market access, regulatory complexity, and limited local networks. The findings show that digital embeddedness functions as a key adaptive mechanism that helps entrepreneurs develop visibility, mobilise resources, and extend beyond primarily co-ethnic markets to engage broader consumer segments, while also introducing platform-related vulnerabilities such as reputational exposure and dependence on algorithmic visibility. By conceptualising digital embeddedness as an extension of mixed embeddedness in digitally mediated market environments, this study contributes to the migrant entrepreneurship literature by clarifying how digital infra-structures reshape opportunity structures in high-income multicultural economies. The paper concludes with theoretically grounded implications and context-sensitive practical insights for supporting migrant entrepreneurship in increasingly digitalised host-country settings.