Hispanic Business Enterprise Success

Abstract

Using data from a survey of one hundred and ninety-nine Hispanic owned businesses in central Indiana, the authors test the extent to which Hispanic business outcomes associated with three factors identified in the literature as having an effect on business success- mobilization of ethnic resources, an ethnic or a mainstream market orientation, and embeddedness in market exchange relationships. Noting that business owners rate their level of enjoyment and satisfaction with their business highly even when their business' performance is questionable, the authors distinguish between subjective and objective indicators of business success. No relationship between the three sets of independent variables and the subjective indicators of success are found. Conversely, the objective indicators of business success such as estimated business assets of the business and business longevity, among others, are negatively related to ethnic resources utilization and positively related to a mainstream market orientation. Mixed results are found for indicators of “market exchange” embeddedness.