Harnessing the potential of Moroccans living abroad through diaspora policies? Assessing the factors of success and failure of a new structure of opportunities for transnational entrepreneurs

ABSTRACT In the framework of the emerging field of research on transnational migrant entrepreneurship at the crossroads of business and migration studies, the main purpose of this article is to assess the change of the Moroccan policy paradigm concerning their diaspora engagement policy, which has shifted from a guest-workers policy narrative (remittances based approach) to a transnational policy narrative (skills-mobilisation based approach) during the last decade. Once we have framed this process, we proceed to analyse the factors of success and failure of this new structure of opportunities for Moroccan transnational entrepreneurs. We have interviewed Moroccan migrant entrepreneurs in Morocco and Spain and stakeholders from different Moroccan institutions, and our findings indicate that there is a gap between the aims of the Moroccan engagement policy and the experiences of these Moroccan entrepreneurs. We argue that the Moroccan government has a too narrow view of transnationalism (only focused on return), a false identity premise (assuming that attraction towards Morocco can only be achieved by fostering a sense of ‘Moroccanness’ that appears to be far from reality), and a false socioeconomic premise that those that take this entrepreneurial route are motivated by opportunity rather than necessity.