User:PiotrChukov/Ertan Elmaagacli

Ertan Elmaagacli (born April 28, 1972) has researched the Turkish diaspora in California and their contribution to the economy in California. His studies on the Turkish community on the West Coast was the first of its kind in the United States. While there has been much scholarly investigation into other immigrant groups, such as Irish, Russian, German and Mexican immigrants, Dr. Elmaagacli found that there has been little scholarship into the experiences and impacts of Turkish immigrants in the United States.

Overview

Dr. Elmaagacli is a Turkish citizen living in Germany. Born and raised in Germany, he studied business administration in Siegen (Germany), Mainz (Germany), and San Diego (USA). While his focus during his studies of Bachelor of Science (2003) and Master of Business Administration (2004) were on global business and Globalization, he decided in his doctorial studies to add to the scant body of knowledge by studying the integration of Turkish immigrants, as well as their contributions to the California Economy.

In his 281-pages dissertaion "Multi-Cultural Business Integration: An Exploratory Study Of Turkish Immigrants’ Contribution To Business In California", Dr. Elmaagacli found that Turkish immigrants were well-educated, overwhelmingly defined themselves as integrated into American culture, and contributed 17.9 billion dollars to the California economy.

His studies on the Turkish community analyzes background, scope and level of Turkish immigrants’ contribution to business in California including motivation of migration, willingness to integrate, and entrepreneurial readiness.

Dr. Elmaagacli also introduces the model "Immigrant Integration Matrix" illustrating the level of education and integration of Turkish Americans in California. This model shows at one glance various information about an immigrant group comparing to other groups or to different immigrant waves of the same ethnic group. The Immigrant Integration Matrix can be adopted to any immigrant group in any society.

The Immigrant Integration Matrix

The Immigrant Integration Matrix is a two-by-two matrix with the horizontal axis representing Integration and the vertical axis representing Education. Every immigrant is somewhere on the continuum of integration. The variable includes the immigrant’s readiness, commitment and self-perception as factors for integrating into the society. It ranges from high to low level of integration.

The relationship between education and integration determines the position of the immigrant group in the matrix. As a result, there are four possible combinations:

1.	Quadrant I. This is the quadrant of low education/low integration relationship. Here, immigrants are poorly educated and badly integrated. Members of the mass immigration in the late 19th and early 20th Century are an example for this category; cultural differences and language barriers are typical hurdles hard to overcome.

2.	Quadrant II. This quadrant with low education/high integration is home to well established immigrants. Next to skilled and unskilled workers/employees, generally small business entrepreneurs are in this category. Members are naturalized U.S. citizens as they have lived for a long period of time in the country. Also, they are usually part of a wave of immigration from one country or region.

3.	Quadrant III. High education/low integration is usually the transitional phase towards the next category of high education/high integration. However, although members are highly educated in this quadrant, some lack of the ability to integrate themselves or simply need more time to adjust to the society. For example, experts in highly specialized areas, who work for several years in the United States, then return to their home country due to cultural differences and/or missing bonds regarding the host country. The entrepreneurial level is non-existing or low.

4.	Quadrant IV. This is the highest category with high education/high integration. People in this quadrant are both very well educated and able to integrate into the society. Commonly, most members are naturalized U.S. citizens, green card holders or have long-term Visa. Typical jobs include middle, high and senior management positions, academic careers, and other specialized professions. Entrepreneurial undertakings include all kind and size of businesses.

Regarding the title of the model, Immigrant Integration Matrix responds directly to immigrants and their level of integration in the society. Only two scores are needed for both, computing the position of the investigated group in the matrix and revealing the contained information at first glance. Further, Immigrant refers to any group of immigrants, here Turkish Americans in California, to determine their overall score and to compare within the investigated group and/or with different groups. Integration indicates the point of time when the analysis takes place. Eventually, Matrix describes the type of model used to illustrate the information.

The Immigrant Integration Matrix examines immigrant groups after their arrival in the host country, viz. post-immigration. Also, the Immigrant Integration Matrix is most suitable as a substructure to develop a pre-immigration model. This model could support officials in their evaluation of prospective immigrants before issuing immigration visa or green cards. The new model would complement existing “immigration point-systems”, such as applied in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain, and further a discussed point-system in the United States.