Entrepreneurship scholars have begun to pay increasing attention to the role that owners’ immigrant background play in the development and global expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on an overarching resource-based perspective (Barney, 1991), a dominant view is that immigrant business owners possess knowledge, experience and other capabilities that constitute valuable resources for conducting business globally (e.g., Neville et al., 2014; Sui et al., 2015). In short, an immigrant background is generally perceived to be an enabling attribute when it comes to global expansion. However, it remains difficult to verify this basic theoretical insight because there is an unresolved performance puzzle, and the resource-based framework is not as adequate as one might initially believe. By unresolved performance puzzle, we mean that the existing evidence does not definitively show that immigrant-owned SMEs systematically outperform other SMEs in creating and capturing value in foreign markets at levels that adequately compensate for the risks assumed in potentially difficult foreign markets (Neville et al., 2014; Sui et al., 2015; Wang and Liu, 2015). Therefore, more systematic evidence is needed. Meanwhile, there is a fundamental gap in the resource-based framework by virtue of its exclusive focus on the enabling (individual) attributes (i.e. internationalization-relevant human and social capital) of an immigrant background. An alternative theoretical framework that identifies counterproductive or detrimental attributes in owners’ immigrant background may shed new light on the role and consequences of immigrant ownership in SMEs.