Resources and Capabilities 57eties where economic rights are more easily exercised than political rights, immigrants
turn to entrepreneurship. Throughout the world, for example, Asian and Jewish immi-
grants, wherever they have settled, have gone into business for themselves. Recent
trends in the United States demonstrate high levels of entrepreneurship in the Hispanic,
Vietnamese, and Korean populations. One statistical estimate of Korean immigrants in
the New York City area concludes that 65 percent of Korean families own at least one
business.
59
Take the example of Jung Pack, a Korean who immigrated to the United
States in 1982. Jung works 16 hours a day in his own grocery business even though he
has a college degree in business administration and was in construction management
back in Korea. Jung says he left Korea because it was too rural; he wanted to live in a
big “cosmopolitan” country. However, when he arrived in the United States, downward
mobility forced him to give up his vision of a white-collar career as a self-employed
shopkeeper. His career in the United States has been blocked by the language barrier and
skepticism about the value of his academic degree. But Jung can probably expect his two
children, who will be U.S. citizens, to pursue either professional careers or en-
trepreneurial opportunities in business services like data processing or management con-
sulting. Meanwhile, Jung says he still dreams of “a better life.”
Other negative displacements result from being fired from a job or being angered or
bored by one’s current employment. Many bored managers and stifled executives in large
corporations are leaving their white-collar jobs and looking for challenges and autonomy.
According to Harry Levinson, a Harvard psychologist who specializes in career and life-
cycle issues, “The entrepreneur, psychologically speaking, has a lot more freedom than
anybody in a big corporation.”^60 Consider the case, for example, of Philip Schwartz, who
was an executive with Olin Corporation and Airco Inc. Schwartz left his middle-level
managerial career to start a business as a wholesaler of packaging materials and cleaning
supplies and to find out “who and what I am.” He reports that he enjoys the autonomy
and action of drumming up business and interacting with customers. He enjoys putting
his own personal stamp on his company. Having only four employees, he can create a fam-
ily atmosphere, relaxed and friendly. He imprints his own values of honesty and depend-
ability on the business, something that no middle-level corporate managers can do.^61
Middle age or divorce may also provide the impetus for new venture creation. In an
unusual example, one entrepreneur recreated his business because of a midlife crisis.
Tom Chappell cofounded a personal-care and health-products business, Tom’s of Maine,
Inc. A number of years ago, Chappell realized that he was not happy running this busi-
ness even though he was successful. He went back to school and obtained a master’s
degree from Harvard Divinity School. His studies led him to examine his values and his
motivation for managing his own firm. He changed the company’s goals, making its
mission to “address community concerns, in Maine and around the globe, by devoting
a portion of our time, talent and resources to the environment, human needs, the arts
and education.”^62
“Between Things”
People who are between things are also more likely to seek entrepreneurial outlets than
those who are in the middle of things. Like immigrants, people who are between things
are sometimes outsiders. The model in Figure 2.2 gives three examples of this state: