Digital Entrepreneurship

Abstract

In the digital age of migration, Chinese migrant entrepreneurial activities are increasingly undertaken online. Drawing on a case study of e-commerce developed by Chinese marriage-migrant women in Taiwan, this article investigates the digitized and emotional dimensions of entrepreneurship. It examines Chinese women’s innovative use of the online social media platform WeChat in developing transnational networks and virtual commercial circuits to achieve their economic goals while adapting to their new host society. It considers the role of the emotions in business formation and in the commercialization of “contested” commodities whose circulations transgress trading rules and borders. This study contributes to the empirical literature on the transformation of migrant entrepreneurship, specifically by diasporic Chinese. Theoretically, the empirical case of digital entrepreneurship among Chinese migrant women invites us to consider the growing use of both virtual platforms and emotions in the making of migrants’ commercial activities.