CASE is seeking a Research Consultant for a mixed methods study of business migration of Belarusians

CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research hereby invites natural (individual) and legal persons (companies, NGOs etc.) to submit an offer for the sociological research work under the project titled: “Support to Belarusian Business in exile and ABBA capacity development” (contract no. NDICI-GEO-NEAR/2022/436-909) commissioned by the European Commission.

INTRODUCTION

Private sector was the key driver of protests following unfair presidential election in Belarus in August 2020 and faced harsh government response aftermath. The political crisis affected many Belarusian private companies in different sectors as well as self-employed. According to the survey of the Imaguru Startup Hub and Coordinating Council in October–November, 2021, the political crisis led to financial losses for more than 60% of the businesses surveyed. Among factors negatively affecting domestic business development were the risks of inspections, closures, arrests; unwillingness to pay taxes to the regime; falling demand; lack of opportunities for growth; the psychological state of employees; deteriorating access to finance, credit and investment. Survey indicated that back in 2021, about 62% of companies were thinking about moving business abroad, and about a third of them indicated that have already partially relocated their business.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, private sector experienced further pressure to relocate from Belarus because of the challenges related to new economic sanctions towards Belarus. The key challenges included:

• Toxicity of Belarusian export companies (including IT) that led to losing Western clients and additional costs of implementing existing contracts;
• Significant restrictions related to the Belarusian banking sector that made international wire transfers to/from Belarus increasingly more difficult, risky and expensive;
• Boycott by Western companies to supply to Belarus that resulted in decreasing import to Belarus, deteriorated supply chains, and high logistic costs;
• Increasing uncertainty and business costs due to the Belarusian ruble exchange rate instability and consumers’ buying power deterioration.

Business climate deterioration has led to business closures in Belarus. Since March 2021, 9,353 (2.5%) of SMEs disappeared in Belarus.

According to the estimations of Association of Belarusian Business Abroad (ABBA) in a recent study, at least 2,100 companies with Belarusian capital were registered in the EU between August 2020 and September 2022, from which at least half are due to company transfers, full or partial. Majority of them (80%) are registered in Poland, while Poland together with Lithuania make up to 90% of total business transfers from Belarus to the EU.

Together with relocating companies from Belarus, entrepreneurship migration of Belarusians is extremely important mechanism of transferring knowledge, investments, and creating new jobs. ABBA experience of dealing with Belarusians abroad shows that the share of those interested in opening sole proprietorship or start-up in Lithuania or Poland is significant. ABBA estimates that the entrepreneurship migration potential of Belarusians in the EU increased by 2’000 of self-employed and start-ups.

The above-mentioned quantitative study was conducted in July-September 2022 and its findings provided valuable implications for the further quantitative and qualitative data collection about Belarusian business relocated to the EU.

CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research is  seeking now a qualified Research Consultant, who can implement the qualitative study to enrich and verify the quantitative data.

BACKGROUND

According to ABBA’s approach presented in the September 2022 study, two types of business migration from Belarus should be considered: business transfer, complete or partial, and entrepreneurship migration. Business transfer should be understood as cross-border company migration from Belarus to abroad, full or partial. Entrepreneurship migration from Belarus means all kinds of self-employment in destination countries and start-ups. Self-employment is defined as legal forms of businesses providing employment to a founder. Start-ups are broadly defined as all kind of business entities that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder.

The upcoming study shall look at both business transfer and entrepreneurship migration and distinct in between specific needs of the two types of business migration from Belarus, whenever possible.

The assignment is part of the larger study of business migration from Belarus. The previous research included: a) interviews with experts to build hypotheses about behavior strategies of the migrated entrepreneurs, and b) the poll among Belarusian diaspora members about their entrepreneurial engagement in the hosting countries. Together with the assignment there will be a set of upholding interviews with the Belarusian businessmen and businesswomen in a parallel study.

PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Purpose: The goal of the study is to map and examine the challenges associated with business migration of Belarusians and explore characteristics of their entrepreneurship migration at different time points.

This goal will be met through the following research objectives:

• Improve understanding of changing needs of business migrants dependent on the legal form of business, its size, and geographical location;
• Explore factors associated with benefits of business migration to hosting countries (spill-over effects), i.e. volume of investment, number of working places created and other indicators of impact of Belarusian business migration onto recipient countries.

Results will be used to develop policy recommendations by CASE to share with the recipient countries’ governments for policy change towards Belarusian business migrants.

SCOPE OF WORK UNDER THE OFFER

The total scope of work with the assignment will consist of  four rounds of research study in total, including:

•  Four recurring online surveys in at least 2 countries (Poland or Lithuania or Georgia or Germany or Latvia) and cumulative opinion for rest of the EU countries with at least 250 answers in each survey in total; each survey should be followed by a focus group;
• Four focus groups with Belarusian entrepreneurs conducted in 2023–2024 with 8–12 representatives of: one group with aspiring entrepreneurs from Belarus in the EU and three groups representing relocated companies (partial or complete), self-employed, new company creation or start-up.

Two rounds of study shall be performed in 2023, and two rounds in 2024. Indicative deadline for each round is the following:

1. Round 1: 31 August 2023;
2. Round 2: 31 December 2023;
3. Round 3: 31 May 2024;
4. Round 4: 31 October 2024.

The schedule may change due to changes in the timetable of the project under which the study is being carried out.

The Research Consultant will be engaged in recruitment of respondents and responsible for data collection (setting up and dissemination of the online questionnaire and conducting online focus groups), data preparation, data cleaning, data analysis, and preparation of the reports (one report per each type of work conducted).

The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the CASE research team.

TASKS TO BE PERFORMED

1. Data collection tools

CASE will provide the consultant with the necessary data collection tools. More specifically, the questionnaires for the surveys and the focus group scenarios will be provided before each round of the study. A feedback from the consultant based on accomplished rounds of the study will be welcomed and taken into account for the remaining assignments.

2. Database and recruitment

To ensure comparability of the results of surveys, a database of potential regular respondents will be created, i.e. a database of companies in the EU with Belarusian owner, founder or beneficiary. The database shall have sufficient representation of the segments of the target group in terms of: country of registration (Poland, Lithuania, and rest of the countries), industries (manufacturing, IT, trade, b2c services, b2b services (except for logistics), logistics), legal form (company, individual entrepreneur / self-employed, start-up without a legal entity), business size, company life cycle (start, growth, stable development, fall, renewal). The database should have both business transfer cases, partial or complete, and self-employments.

The database will be created by the research consultant from the contacts provided by CASE and ABBA, and shall have at least 1000 records at the beginning of the study with subsequent recruitment of participants while maintaining the original structure of the database according to the above criteria. To recruit the required number of entrepreneurs to the database, the consultant may develop own tools including for example a project’s landing page and organize a project campaign along with invitation to join the database. CASE and ABBA will contribute to marketing efforts of the consultant to ensure better involvement of the Belarusian business community.

Recruitment of participants of the focus groups will be carried out from the database members, among other means. The final target groups of focus studies will depend on results of the surveys, and will be provided to consultant at a later stage. Potential topics of the studies are entrepreneurship by Belarusian women in the EU; barriers for potential entrepreneurs in the EU; financial barriers in the EU; conditions of entrepreneurial repatriation; spillover effects of investments in the EU. The consultant should ensure participation of 8–12 representatives of entrepreneurs from Belarus in each group representing relocated companies (partial or complete), self-employed, new company creation or start-up. Equal participation of men and women is expected at the focus groups, unless the topic of a focus group is gender specific.

3. Data acquiring

The consultant will ensure the communication with the database members (an invitation to take the survey) through an email newsletter and a subsequent reminder in telegram messages. In addition to obtaining contacts for communication, during registration for the panel, a profile of each respondent (according to the criteria described above) will be compiled, which will be used in the analysis of the results of subsequent surveys on the panel. The survey should be conducted in Belarusian/Russian language using online questionnaire by appropriate for Consultant software. Expected number of responses in each survey is 250 in total. In total, four rounds of survey should be communicated to the database participants.

Each round of the panel survey shall include one permanent block of questions with an assessment of the current situation of business migrants and their expectations for the future, and a changing block of questions related to specific issues of interests. Each questionnaire shall be piloted (filling in 2–3 questionnaires by the piloting respondent, accompanied by a sociologist to identify weaknesses).

To ensure a deeper understanding of the situation of business migrants in sufficient and structured way, the consultant is expected to enrich the surveys with following four focus groups with Belarusian entrepreneurs in 2023-2024. Specific timing for focus groups will be discussed with consultant during the assignment depending on the results of surveys. Focus groups are expected to be held in the online format with a moderated discussion, 8–12 in each group. Focus groups participants should be represented, when appropriate, by owners or senior managers of the companies from the database of the study. All focus groups should be transcribed at the cost of the consultant.

4. Data cleaning

The result of the survey shall be a panel data collection in Excel format, clean and prepared for the further analysis. The language of the dataset shall be Belarusian/Russian with translation into English. The data is to be prepared for computer-assisted quantitative and qualitative analysis, cost of the necessary software for data preparing should include in the consultant's remuneration.

The effect of the focus groups should be transcriptions files in Word format in the Belarusian/Russian language.

5. Data analysis

Consultant shall prepare the analyses of the datasets and focus groups to fulfill the purpose and objectives of the study. More specifically, analyses shall:

• Outline key challenges associated with business migration of Belarusians along with characteristics of their entrepreneurship migration at different time points;
• Provide details of changing needs of business migrants dependent on the legal form of business, its size, and geographical location;
• Explore factors associated with benefits of business migration to hosting countries (spill-over effects), i.e. volume of investment, number of working places created and other indicators of impact of Belarusian business migration onto recipient countries.

To achieve the above, consultant will be responsible for development of the data analysis methodology.

6. Reporting the study

Each round of the study shall end up with a short structured report. In total, four reports shall be delivered, with no more than 15 pages per report. The report shall be delivered in Word format, with both graphical and descriptive content in Russian/Belarusian language.

Besides the written reports, key results from each round of the study shall be presented in a PowerPoint format in English language for further usage by CASE at public events.

TIMELINE

We estimate that each round of the study will take approximately 2 months. The successful research consultant will be asked to present the updated and detailed timeline of the work just after the signing the contract.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE OFFER 

The full offer should consist of Technical and Financial offer.

The Technical Offer should be presented as a WORD or PDF document (max. 10 pages with annexes) and should include the following elements:

• general presentation of the consultant;
• description of the relevant experience;
• description of proposed method of recruiting focus group participants for this study;
• description of proposed method of data base development for this study;
• list of 3 projects of similar type and scope done in the last 3 years (description of tasks performed, budget, client), if available – confirmation of successful completion of the work
• presentations of the experts who will be involved in the study (bionotes);
• CVs.

The financial offer should be submitted using the form found in the left-hand website panel and should be expressed in EURO. It should cover all costs of the Consultant to perform proposed study.

DEADLINE

The full offers should be sent by email till July 7^th, 2023 (EOD) to the email address: mateusz.graczynski@case-research.eu.