Transnational Entrepreneurship, Remittances, and Economic Development: A Theory of Diaspora Entrepreneurial Capital Flows to Nigeria

This dissertation develops an original theory of diaspora entrepreneurial capital flows, examining how Nigerian diaspora entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada simultaneously build businesses in host countries and channel entrepreneurial knowledge, social networks, financial capital, and institutional innovations into Nigeria's enterprise sector, and how these flows interact to produce development outcomes. Remittance research has focused predominantly on household consumption transfers while diaspora entrepreneurship research has examined host-country business creation, leaving the theorisation of the developmental entrepreneurial knowledge and capital flows that transnational entrepreneurs generate for their home countries underdeveloped. The dissertation employs a multi-sited transnational ethnography, conducting fieldwork in Nigerian diaspora business communities in London, Houston, and Toronto, and following transnational entrepreneurial capital flows to their Nigerian enterprise destinations across Lagos, Owerri, and Kano. Data were collected through 50 in-depth interviews, participant observation at diaspora business events, and survey data from 120 transnational entrepreneur households. The theoretical contribution is the Transnational Entrepreneurial Capital Framework, which distinguishes five capital flow dimensions: financial capital, entrepreneurial knowledge, social network bridging, institutional translation, and aspirational demonstration effects. Original concepts include entrepreneurial remittances, defined as knowledge and practice transfers with direct enterprise application distinct from financial remittances, and bidirectional ecosystem enrichment, the process through which diaspora entrepreneurs simultaneously strengthen Nigerian enterprise culture and home-country network resources. Keywords: transnational entrepreneurship, diaspora, remittances, economic development, Nigeria.