Abstract
The goal of this paper is to gain insight into the circumstances of entrepreneurship. The focus of the study is the comparison between the entrepreneurship set up by Albanian native and return migrant entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is supposed to be one of the engines of economic growth. The entrepreneurship set up by the return migrant entrepreneurs is still one of the main phenomena in South–Eastern European countries and Western Balkan countries, Albania included. Based on their foreign experiences, knowledge, money, ideas, achievements, and connections, they have decided to start up their own businesses in Albania. The pandemic situation significantly encouraged them to have something of their own.
The paper reviews the theoretical literature on entrepreneurship and return migrant entrepreneurs. Based on literature review, a questionnaire is addressed to different entrepreneurs in Albania, focusing mostly to the native ones and return migrant entrepreneurs. Data were collected from 521 respondents. To better understand the situation and the challenges faced by the entrepreneurs, several questions were included in the questionnaire, even open-ended ones. The questionnaire was self-administered by the respondents. As underlined by them, it was challenging to start up and manage the entrepreneurship in their home country. Based on the data gathered, the findings show that entrepreneurs and especially return migrant ones had clear ideas about entrepreneurship. This study has its limitations regarding the number of respondents or the factors included in the research. However, it fills up a gap, by comparing the entrepreneurship between the native entrepreneurs and return migrant entrepreneurs. In this paper, we are not focused on what the difference or impact is based on the entrepreneurs being male or female. The exploration of the impact based on the entrepreneur’s gender may be an area of interest for future study. This paper provides some strong recommendations to both the entrepreneurs and the government.