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Research On Entrepreneur Leadership Behavior, Strategy Formation And New Venture Performance

Posted on:2017-02-27Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:B ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:1109330482995598Subject:Business Administration
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Practice has proven that entrepreneurial activity plays an important role in economic and social development of our country. Furthermore, entrepreneurship has gradually become a critical means for the government to stabilize growth, ensure employment and promote economic transformation as the “public entrepreneurship and innovation” written into the government work report. However, the rapid death of a large number of new ventures prompted us to think deeply about the survival of new ventures, that is, how to improve the rate of entrepreneurial success. Certainly, there are many new ventures stand out in various fields. These firms win the survival in competition-intensive environment and grow into the industry elite.So, what are the factors that drive these successful new ventures to achieve excellent performance? We find that uncertainty and unpredictability of external environment are the roots of current rich entrepreneurial opportunities and entrepreneurial challenges under the background of Chinese economic transformation.On the one hand, the frequent changes of market demand and technology bring a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurship, and new ventures are constantly emerging. On the other hand, new ventures have low risk-taking ability because of resource scarcity.Therefore, the entrepreneurial behaviors of new ventures face high risk under dynamic environment, which may lead to entrepreneurial failure.The effect of strategy in solving entrepreneurship problem is getting more and more attention, and effective strategic decisions are the key factor to deal with environmental challenges. Based on entrepreneurship practice and the importance of strategic decision, this research draws on upper echelons theory, environmental management theory, environmental determinism theory and organizational learning theory, and build a research model to explore the relationships among entrepreneur leadership behavior(directive leadership and empowering leadership), strategy formation(planning mode and emergent mode) and new venture performance. Basedon the model, this research attempts to investigate the antecedent and moderating factors of strategy formation in the process of new venture creation and growth, and provides the idea for resolving entrepreneurship issue from the strategic perspective.Concretely speaking, this research further explains the different influence of entrepreneur leadership behavior on strategy formation, and analyzes the role mechanism of strategy formation on new ventures, and the moderating effect of entrepreneurial learning on the relationship between strategy formation and new venture performance.In order to verify the rationality of theoretical model, this research collects related data of six new ventures by interview. Through these six firms, we extract the key behaviors of them and verify the rationality of the model. Meanwhile, in order to verify the universality of research problem, this research uses questionnaire to collect data in Changchun, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing, and test the theoretical hypotheses through large sample statistical analysis. Using an empirical analysis of396 valid questionnaires collected from 198 companies, the empirical results support most of the theoretical hypothesis. The data analysis results are as follows: directive leadershiphas positive effects on planning mode and negative ones on emergent mode;empowering leadership affects planning mode and emergent mode positively;planning mode, emergent mode and the interaction affect new venture performance positively; entrepreneurial learning has positive moderating effect on emergency mode, and has a negative moderating effect on planning mode.This research of strategy formation is based on the critical research question in the field of entrepreneurship, and the research gap of strategy formation. This research drawing on upper echelons theory, environmental management theory, environmental determinism theory and organizational learning theory, builds and verifies the theoretical model by case study and large sample statistical analysis. Strategy formation is divided into planning mode and emergent mode in this research. Because of the key position of entrepreneurs in new ventures, this research reveals the effects of different entrepreneur leadership behaviors(directive leadership and empowering leadership) on strategy formation, explains the mechanism of planning mode andemergent mode, and explores the moderating effects of entrepreneurial learning. The research enriches the existing theory of entrepreneurship and response to the appeals for multidisciplinary integration in entrepreneurship research. Therefore, this research has some innovation as the following three aspects.(1) Based on the shortage of strategy formation research in new ventures, the research analyzes strategy formation from planning mode and emergent mode, and builds model in order to reveal the mechanism of strategy formation in new venture,and explore the effects of different formation modes and the interaction of them on new venture performance. The research facilitates the integration between strategic management and entrepreneurship, and provides theoretical support for discussing entrepreneurship issue and explaining entrepreneurship phenomena from strategic view.(2) Strategy formation is the key to successful development of entrepreneurial opportunities, and the effective leadership of entrepreneurs is particularly important for the successful accomplishment of strategy formation. Based on this, this research builds model to discuss the role mechanism of entrepreneur leadership behaviors on strategy formation, and analyze the effect of different entrepreneur leadership behaviors on different strategy formation modes, which reveals how different entrepreneur leadership behaviors influence planning mode and emergent mode. This research makes up for the shortage of leadership theory and contributes to our deeply understanding of the role mechanism of entrepreneur leadership behavior.(3) Entrepreneurial learning is a crucial means for new venture to deal with environmental changes and the liabilities of newness, which can promote the effect of strategy formation. Based on this, this research builds model to reveal the role mechanism of entrepreneurial learning on strategy formation, and analyze the moderating effect of entrepreneurial learning on different formation modes and the interaction of them. This research improves the research domain of entrepreneurial learning, and it provides the theoretical support for investigating the significance of entrepreneurial learning from different perspectives.Overall, from the role mechanism analysis and empirical study of strategyformation, we can see that strategy formation is critical for entrepreneurial activity,and it is the guarantee for the successful development of entrepreneurial opportunities in new ventures and the recipe of response to entrepreneurship issue. Appropriate strategy formation mode contributes to the right decisions of new venture. The successful new ventures are paying great attention to strategy formation, and regards strategy formation as the core decision-making behavior during the whole creation and growth stage.More importantly, this research investigates the role mechanism of strategy formation based on new ventures. Compared with established firms, new ventures have smaller scale, weaker risk-taking ability, and lack proper operating procedures.Therefore, the obstacles they may be confronted with are more significant when the strategy formation functions. To resolve the challenges of environmental changes and the liabilities of newness, how to select appropriate strategy formation mode or guarantee the successful accomplishment of strategy formation is an important issue that new ventures must deal with. This research reveals that entrepreneur leadership behavior and entrepreneurial learning can help new ventures to resolve this issue.However, unfortunately, new ventures and entrepreneurs do not realize the importance of strategy formation, which implies that the position of strategy formation is not as expected in new ventures. And the successful accomplishment of strategy formation is more difficult for new ventures. Undoubtedly, this research paves the “Road For Hope” for new ventures to effective decision-making, and guide them coping with entrepreneurship issues.
Keywords/Search Tags:Entrepreneur leadership behavior, Strategy formation, Entrepreneurial learning, New venture performance
PDF Full Text Request
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