Can religion be strategically used for socially under-represented entrepreneurs, like ethnic minority entrepreneurs, to scale up their business? To address this research question, we shift our attention from a spiritual and moral aspect of religion typically described as a faith in the previous studies to its communal aspect highlighting a network hub role of religious organizations. Adopting an ethnographic approach, we deeply immerse into the notorious border areas of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, often referred to as the Golden Triangle, where we discovered a non-traditional scale-up activity of an ethnic minority entrepreneur family. We find that religion provides key strategic resources for ethnic minority entrepreneurs: access regional social capital, build channels to promote their business, and secure societal legitimacy. The benefits from strategic use of religions may help minority entrepreneurs scale up their business in a broader market, despite boundaries between ethnic minorities and mainstream Thai people which derived from geo-cultural barriers and collective memory.
