High-tech Entrepreneurship Action And Its Effectiveness Mechanisms Under Industrial Transformation And Upgrading

In recent years, entrepreneurship in high-tech areas has become an important driving force for boosting economic and social development globally. It also serves as a major determinant of the competitiveness of companies, industries, and even nations. Under this background, in order to compete in the global market and seize opportunities for long-term growth, implementing industrial transformation and upgrading, through accelerating high-tech entrepreneurship and the technology creation and industrialization process, becomes an inevitable choice for Chinese companies. However, the development of high technologies is full of risks and uncertainties, meanwhile, global competition on technology, market, capital and human resources grows increasingly fierce, which lead to a high failure rate of high-tech entrepreneurship in China. Therefore, for Chinese high-tech companies, how to take effective actions to uphold rapid growth and achieve success concerns both the researchers and practitioners. It is also the major issue that this dissertation wants to shed some light on.Based on the previous literature on high-tech entrepreneurship, organizational change and action theory, this dissertation adopted the perspective of parallel distributed processing (PDP) and organizational ambidexterity in order to answer three specific research questions. First, under the industrial transformation and upgrading background, what are the essential elements and dimensions of high-tech entrepreneurship action (HTEA)? To answer this question, a new construct of HTEA needs to be developed. Secondly, what are the key mechanisms that could drive a firm’s HTEA? To answer this question, the contextual, internal and external antecedents of HTEA need to be identified, and their effect mechanisms need to be examined as well. Furthermore, how HTEA affects firm performance? Answering this question requires analyzing the relationship between HTEA and performance, figuring out the pattern of that relationship, as well as identifying the boundary conditions. Four interrelated studies were carried out to answer the foregoing questions.Study1developed the HTEA construct via an in-depth multi-case study. On the basis of PDP and organizational ambidexterity theories, a theoretical framework was constructed, with four quadrants drawn from the "exploration-exploitation" and "internal-external" dimensions. Four typical high-tech entrepreneurial companies were selected, from which data were collected through in-depth interviews, observations, company archives, public reports, etc. By doing within-case analyses and cross-case comparisons, four dimensions of HTEA were identified which are self-exploration, integrated optimization, collaborative absorption, and network reciprocity.Study2validated the four-dimension HTEA construct and developed a questionnaire scale for it. Based on the case study results, more semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted, and relative research scales were analyzed. As a result, a preliminary scale consisting of four dimensions and25items was developed. In the first round questionnaire survey, by using explorative factor analysis method, the previous scale was narrowed down to19items with satisfactory loadings. In the second round questionnaire survey, by using confirmative factor analysis and discriminative as well as criterion-related validity analyses, the four-dimension and19-item HTEA construct was verified.Study3was to explore the key antecedents and mechanisms that could form HTEA. A comprehensive literature review was done from the contextualization perspective and organizational change dynamics theory. Then, a research framework and theoretical hypotheses were developed which focused on the effects of the entrepreneurial context that consisted of a matrix formed by business area and development model, environmental dynamic factors that consisted of environmental uncertainty (EU) and policy support (PS), and organizational dynamic factors that consisted of shared vison (SV) and proactiveness (PRO). Questionnaire survey method was adopted. The results showed that, firstly, companies in different entrepreneurial contexts tended to perform different actions, for example, companies in emerging areas took more integrated optimization actions, and companies in emerging areas or in a radical development model tended to do more self exploration actions. Secondly, EU, PS, SV and PRO could positively influence a firm’s HTEA. Furthermore, the interaction between EU and PS, as well as the interaction between SV and PRO could positively influence HTEA.Study4was to explore the effectuation mechanisms of HTEA. Based on the PDP, action, regulatory focus theories, five series of hypotheses were drawn up and then tested through two interrelated studies. In the first study, hierarchical linear modelling method (HLM) was used to analyze the longitudinal data collected from second-hand sources. The results showed that HTEA as a whole and its three dimensions, such as self-exploration, collaborative absorption and network reciprocity, could positively affect firm performance. And the dynamism of the external industrial environment could positively moderate the relationship between collaborative absorption, network reciprocity and firm performance. Following the first study, a questionnaire survey was carried out to further explore the HTEA-performance relationship and the contingency effects. The results firstly confirmed the positive relationship between HTEA and firm performance, and also found that thesintegrated optimization dimension could enhance firm performance as well. Secondly, the results showed that the balance between and among those four dimensions could enhance firm performance, providing evidences for the PDP action model. Furthermore, compared with rule focus, innovation foucus of organizational strategic orientation could positively moderate the HTEA-performance relationship.The contributions of this dissertation consist of four aspects:first, we developed a new multi-dimensional construct and a scale for HTEA; secondly, we identified the contextual, internal and external driving forces of HTEA, and revealed their effect mechanisms; thirdly, we proposed and then tested the PDP model as an effective action model for performance improvement; lastly, we found the moderating role of environmental dynamism and innovation foucs in the relationship between HTEA and firm performance. These contributions, on one hand, extend the current research on high-tech entrepreneurship by adding the action theory perspective; on the other hand, provide practical guides for Chinese companies to take effective actions during the industrial transformation and upgrading process.