Research On The Affecting Mechanism Of Social Network On Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition: The Mediate Role Of Information Access

Entrepreneurial opportunity is the core issue of entrepreneurship research, and the entrepreneurship is to find and exploit profitable business opportunities. In recent years, the research of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition has increasingly become a focus of the business. Western scholars dedicated to exploring a causal relationship between individual factors and the possibility of opportunity recognition. They proposed key factors such as personal characteristics, prior knowledge and experience, social network effects for the opportunity recognition.For the impact of the opportunity recognition from personal characteristics, related researches emphasize the role of individual creativity. The generation of new creative is the natural result based on mental operation in the existing knowledge structure. As a specific link to guide a more effective idea generation, creativity increases possibilities of the opportunity recognition. 90% of entrepreneurs believe that creativity is essential for the discovery of Entrepreneurial opportunity. But the most challenging and urgent problem to be solved is What special of thinking process an individual uses, which came up with a product, service or technology, and innovative ideas.On the social network, the study found that use of social network is an important way to identify opportunities. As an important tool in getting the information contained opportunities, social network is concerned by its role and function in the process of opportunity recognition. Current research focuses on a causal relationship between mining the structure features of individual network and the possibility of opportunity recognition. These findings explained to some extent what kind of network structure with the individual is more likely to find business opportunities.By sorting out relevant literature, we found that, for the Identification of entrepreneurial opportunity, social networks , cognitive factors such as entrepreneurs, and those relationship, domestic and foreign scholars have made some research which is focus on research from the perspective of a single study of Entrepreneurial opportunity identification, but while these studies focusing on single factor caused a particular business opportunity, they ignore the important role of other factors on the Entrepreneurial opportunity.Thus,there is a big research space on entrepreneurial opportunity identification.This paper is based on the main line of the information, effectively combined the social network and the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition from the perspective of accessing information, using creative thinking to explain how the information obtained to facilitate more effective recognition of Entrepreneurial opportunity, and combines social network, information access, creative thinking and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition in a frame system.There are five Main contents about this article.First, reviewing the relevant theory and literature, and proposing the research ideas. Austrian economics, social network theory, cognitive theory and the theory of creativity researched entrepreneurial opportunity recognition from different perspective. The article analysised these basic theories, then analysised and introduced entrepreneurial opportunity recognition by the concept of Entrepreneurial opportunity, the content of entrepreneurial opportunities recognition, the effect factors of opportunity recognition. On this basis, the paper focuses on the social network, information access, the cognitive and creativity of entrepreneurs to summarize research status of the opportunity recognition. Based on previous research, this study proposed the research way.Second, builded a relationship model of social network and Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. The paper defined the meaning of the elements of the study, and constructed a theoretical model.Third, based on the theoretical framework, the article expounds the relationship of the various research variables, proposed 8 hypotheses.Fourth, empirical study. Carry on the measure to each research variable, and design the questionnaire, use the multiple regression technology and the spss16.0 statistics software exanimate the suppositions. The place where we got the data are Changchun and Guangzhou. After three month-long investigation and study, we recycled 161 effective questionnaires. As a result, in the eight suppositions, six passed, the other two didn't.Fifth,Check result discussion,make clear about theory of article studies and practice significance. Summarized the six supported suppositions in original elaboration foundation, discussed the significance of conclusion. Regarding the two suppositions which have not obtained the support, namely commercial network regarding undertaking opportunity recognition function, we obtained from the complexity of the commercial network relations and the trust mechanism of the commercial network, and then analyzed the reason. Finally has formed three suggestions through the synthesis discussion focus on the pioneer and the Government department: First, the pioneer should relate with the different type of social network, and need to pay great attention to promote in the relations to trust; Second, the pioneer should acquire the innovative ideology, and pays great attention to raise the creative thinking; Third, the related departments must pay great attention to the establishment of open information platform, and improve the quality of information service.The main conclusions of this study are the following points.First, starting from the access to information, to study the recognition mechanism of quantity and quality of access to information for the entrepreneurial opportunity, the results show that access to information has a significant positive impact to the entrepreneurial opportunities recognition.Second, from the main departure of the social network to study the recognition mechanism of the individual networks, business networks, the strength of government support network to the entrepreneurial opportunity, the results show that the individual networks, government support network has a significant positive impact to entrepreneurial opportunity; business networks has a negative impact to entrepreneurial opportunity identification, but not significant.Third, using the regression of mediator to discuss the intermediary role of information acquisition, the results show that the intermediary role of access to information in the individual network and business opportunities identification is fully established; intermediary role of access to information in the network of government support and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition is not fully established.Fourth, using multiple regression to explore the moderating role of the creative thinking on entrepreneurial opportunities and information access. The results show that creative thinking plays a significantly positive role on the relationship of entrepreneurship opportunities recognition and information access. The innovation of this article is mainly reflected in the following:First, it created a comprehensive concept of the entrepreneurial opportunity identification model based on information collecting visual angle, and the hypothesis is tested by using large-scale survey data. From the retrospection of literatures, we can see that the research on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition used to walk in a unitary way, such as the research from Sigrist(1999) focused on the processing of perceiving of the opportunity identification; the research from Hills,et al.(1997) and De Koning(1999) focused on entrepreneurial opportunity under the Social Network; All the researches will easily ignore the important effect of other factors by collimation for a qualified element in the entrepreneurial opportunity. The magisterial line of this article is information, and by integrating the social network and the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition from the information access perspection to explain how the information we get to accelerate the processing of the entrepreneurial opportunity identification by using the creative thinking that entrepreneurs used during the resolve of problems, and the research take place in the connection of internal and external elements that affect the opportunity identification. it's the first time to discuss the intermediary effect of the information collecting between the Social Network and the entrepreneurial opportunity identification. The former researches put more words in the direct effect of the social network and the entrepreneurial opportunity identification, and few of them try to figure out how the Social Network affect the entrepreneurial opportunity identification in deep. This article is the first one to research the role of information access in the whole problem, by considering the intermediary effect of information collecting itself.The research contributes to the development and enrichment of the entrepreneurial opportunity identification. And it's an attempt by using the survey data of our country to authenticate the research.Second, This paper analyzes the constitute of the entrepreneurial social network, divides into Individual networks, business networks and government supported network, and discusses the important role of Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Previous scholars are more focused on the possibilities role of social network on the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, or explored the strength of the links in the process of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition which is more important. In this paper, by anglicizing the background of economic transformation in China, it is more concerned about the entrepreneur's social network membership, and described the important role of the government supported network on the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition process. This section extends the social network research, is conducive to social networks of entrepreneurs to establish and maintain relationships.Thirdly, this is the first application of the creative thinking way on the Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition in empirical research. Previous studies have recognized the business opportunity for entrepreneurs identify the cognitive impact of the role, but did not direct the important role of creative thinking. This category is the lack of empirical research. In this paper, creative thinking has its role between Information acquisition and opportunity recognition from the point of Information integration.This is a new trial in both of theoretical and empirical research.