Refugee entrepreneurship in Turkey: The case of Syrians in Gaziantep

Immigration is that a person's move from one country to another because of social, political and economic reasons. It influences on both homeland and host countries economically and socially. One of the most vital factors in the formation of these effects is the entrepreneurship activities of immigrants. Refugees performing their entrepreneurship activity in the settled country are named as refugee entrepreneurship. In 2011, due to the civil war in Syria, 13 million Syrians have been forced to abandon from homeland. Thus Turkey has become the most Syrian refugees hosted country in the world with its open-door policy and 3.626.820 Syrians. Additionally, Gaziantep is the second most populated province of Syrian refugees, 441.978 registered Syrians live there. However, it is inevitable that this number will increase with unregistered Syrians. Some of Syrian refugees are trying to make living by entrepreneurship activities even small, however clear number cannot be reached. This study aims to specify the factors influencing Syrian entrepreneurs' motivation and to contribute to this area which limited number of studies academically. Therefore, the research was conducted by applying online and face-to-face surveys to 278 Syrian entrepreneurs registered in Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce. The data collected and were analyzed using correlation and regression analyzes with descriptive statistics. As a result of analysis; refugee entrepreneurs are mostly male and young people, also they have not been in self-employed in their past, deficiency individual skills and environmental obstacles have been found to decrease Syrian entrepreneurs' motivation. It is also noteworthy that most of participants do not receive aid from anywhere and don't engage in entrepreneurship in their homelands. Key words: Turkey, Syria, Immigration, Refugee Entrepreneurship, Motivations, Deficiency of Individual Skills, Environmental Obstacles