Yintan Fan

Yintan Fan is a polyglot, a last year PhD Sociology on job market; His current PhD topic is about “Made in Italy by Chinese”, exploring empirical evidence on ethnic entrepreneurship in the fashion industry. His proposed post-doc topic (season 2) is about “Made in Germany”: Lost industrial entrepreneurship: how did the innovation delay in the electric vehicle industry happen. He is open for discussions, suggestions and collaborations, and He is glad to be helpful in sharing Chinese contexts.

The project

Title: Leave to remain, who is the next fast fashion maker?

"Economic migration and ethnic entrepreneurship have drawn the attention of policymakers and scholars since entrepreneurs’ global investment and business activities contribute to technical innovation and economic development. In this trend, migrants come to a new country and start their entrepreneurial practices. This is particularly evident in regions such as Prato, Italy, where an increasing number of Chinese merchants are engaged in the catering, textile, wholesale and other niche industries. The migrant entrepreneurs have converted Prato into a fast fashion manufacturing centre and one of the largest wholesale networks in Europe. It makes me think about why these migrants give up their life in their home country and prefer to become entrepreneurial in a new society where they barely know the language and culture.

These migrants lacking the necessary knowledge, can hardly survive in the new society. So, they will seek help from family and other organisations. Support from the ethnic community has played an essential role in migrants’ adaptation and integration. Besides family and kinship, migrant organisations such as township associations, industrial associations, and religious communities have been part of their daily life. For instance, overseas chambers of commerce have helped some migrant entrepreneurs in various aspects, including business development, law consultation and networking, life adaptation, social care, and cultural communication, which has been beyond pure business organisations."

Hosting institution: Sciences Po

Selective Bibliography

• Made in Italy by Chinese? Rebranding Migrant Entrepreneurship in Prato Fast Fashion Production (Under Review)
• Calibrated Time: Temporal Embeddedness of Chinese Migrant Entrepreneurship in Prato Fast Fashion Industry (Working in Progress)
• Paradoxical Network Dependence: Entrepreneurial Trajectory of Chinese Migrants in Spain （Working in Progress)