I would like to thank my Professors at Hannam University to help me find the

particular communities 
On the contrary to that, the rest of 3 interviewees had their own reasons for 
not considering to work with co-ethnic community members. Among the 
participants, two immigrant entrepreneurs. They also acknowledged that 
working with multicultural employees is always better because even if they 
leave the job they always find replacement for themselves among their 
friends which helps the immigrant entrepreneurs not to get into the hassle of 
finding a new employee. Furthermore, they admitted that employees of other 
ethnic community members have a better working attitude than their co-
ethnic community members. They emphasized that mostly co-ethnic 
community members are not good to work with because they become 

---

47 
comfortable to an extent that they stop respecting professional boundaries. 
They also showed lack of trustworthiness on co-ethnic community members
When they were asked about emotional support, two of the immigrant 
entrepreneurs confirmed that they got emotional support from their 
community. They said that they were lifted up by their co-ethnic community 
when they were in the beginning of setting up their business and they were 
uncertain about the future. The other 3 participants said that instead of 
getting emotional supported their community members often discouraged 
them by quoting stories of those who failed to maintain business in South 
Korea before. They complained that the degrading remarks by their co-
ethnic community members discouraged their spirits to overcome challenges 
and they believed that there is nobody but their own-self, can help them 
achieve success. This seems consistent with the lack of confidence on co-
ethnic community members reported by 3 immigrant entrepreneurs in the 
interview as mentioned above. 
4.6.1 Reasoning behind partial confirmation of ethnic Labor and ethnic 
emotional support as a survival factor 
Some of the informants showed high level of trust and confidence over hiring 
co-ethnic employees. They also gave credit to their fellow countrymen who 
helped them and emotionally supported them to overcome the highs and lows 
of business. Some of them made the following statement: 

“
All of my employees are Muslims and from my own country Pakistan. 
I feel more comfortable to work with co-ethnic community members 
because I came here with a help of my Pakistani friend. When I came 
in the beginning that Pakistani friend did let me buy groceries for 1 
year on loan because I invested all my money in my restaurant. I had 
a family to feed and it was impossible to survive without the support 
from my community. I returned money after 1 year with no additional 

---

48 
interest rate so I will always be grateful for my community
’
s kindness. 
I can give back to my community by lending help to people who come 
far from their homes in search of settling down on a foreign land. 
Even if some of my workers are not proficient at speaking Korean 
language, I always there to either help by myself or through another 
worker who can speak Korean well to deal with Korean customers. 
From that point on, I decided to help my community people and I will 
continue to do it as long as they need me. There are times when I 
find other community members who have restaurants around me to 
offer food at lower prices or to do something to compete with me and 
it bothers me
”
. (Case 2) 

“
I will always prefer to hire Uzbek staff over any other nationality 
and the first reason is smooth communication. Our chef doesn