The community of practice corresponds to best practice in knowledge transfer: focused on user needs, it relies on social interaction, mobilizes different types of knowledge and combines various strategies.
The Immigrant Entrepreneurship community of practice is mobilizing to support and meet the needs of entrepreneurs from immigrant backgrounds.
The aim is to boost immigrant entrepreneurship by mobilizing the entrepreneurial ecosystem to provide an environment that meets their needs.
Highlights
According to the Portrait du dynamisme entrepreneurial de Laval 2021, immigrant entrepreneurs' intention and start-up rates are almost double those of native-born entrepreneurs (intentions: 22.4% vs. 13.5%, start-ups: 13.7% vs. 7.6%), and they also have a slightly higher owner rate (7.1% vs. 6.1% for native-born entrepreneurs). Immigrants have thus enabled Laval to maintain its overall entrepreneurial dynamism. However, this same group had a much higher rate of business closures than natives (13.2% vs. 8.5%).
A community of practice in action :
Financial literacy workshop
One of the needs identified among immigrant entrepreneurs was to better understand the specifics of budget management. Formation Korpus, the company's continuing education and business development department, offered a training course specifically developed to meet the needs of our customers in terms of business planning and financial management. By the end of the course, participants were able to analyze their company's financial situation, manage their cash flow appropriately and quickly make informed decisions.
Workshop on intercultural approaches in an entrepreneurial context
With a view to increasing knowledge and better equipping ourselves as an entrepreneurial community, a workshop on the intercultural approach in an entrepreneurial context was given by Hicham Khanafer of Entreprendre ici. The workshop covered the following topics:
- A better understanding of the intercultural approach;
- Highlighting the challenges faced by ethno-culturally diverse entrepreneurs in the business world;
- How to engage in intercultural communication;
- Exchange on business codes (Quebec/around the world).
Developing the knowledge of the immigrant entrepreneurship community
Immigrant entrepreneurship in Laval
This report was drawn up with the aim of gathering the opinions of immigrant business owners. In order to better respond to their issues, questions were raised concerning their current situation, the help they received (or didn't receive), the obstacles they experienced within the Laval entrepreneurial ecosystem, and their specific needs.