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Entrepreneurs' Traits, Entrepreneurial Network And Business Performance Based On Resource Acquisition: Evidence From Chinese Online Stores

Posted on:2012-09-14Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:K WangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1119330332997403Subject:Technical Economics and Management
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Since 1994 when the global internet was introduced into China, the development of internet technology has provided tremendous opportunities for business and finally created the commercial sector of e-entrepreneurship. In 2010, GDP brought by electronic commerce accounted for 8.1% of national GDP of the whole year; the direct and indirect job vacancies brought by online entrepreneurship accounted for half of the total amount of employment opportunities pulled by the 4 trillion RMB invested by the Chinese government; the industrial network pulled by B2C and C2C online stores covered every sector in service economy. Among them, the individual online stores on the C2C platform have been more than 14 million, created the annual production value over 500 billion RMB, cultivated 144 million online consumers and thus become a strong new growth point of economy in the post financial crisis Chinese environment.The emerging online entrepreneurship area has provided research opportunities for whether the existing theories can explain the value creation mechanism in new context and whether there are various channels towards business performance. Although the internet application grows rapidly and online entrepreneurship plays key role in economic development, the academic community has not fully developed as well as tested the new theories to explain this new phenomenon. The consequence of lacking theory development and empirical testing is to raise such a question: whether the traditional theories can fully explain the online entrepreneurial behaviors? And whether the internet and electronic commerce represent a new business model which is not restricted by traditional economic principles? Although there exist large quantity of research opportunities, the academic community has not fully discussed the value creation mechanism in e-business sector, especially ,lacking the research findings on the entrepreneurial process and mechanism of the online stores which grow most rapidly and enjoy a highest growth nature in electronic commerce.However, the practical community has a strong demand for the intellectual support for online entrepreneurship. In the communication with online store owners, we found that many entrepreneurs had a strong learning desire for knowledge related to online entrepreneurial rules. But the accessible entrepreneurial books on online store entrepreneurship in the market are only restricted to the operational guidelines for start-up and the introduction to the operational rules of C2C platform. Few are related to the entrepreneurial rules as well as systematic explanation of developmental strategies of the online stores. This situation comprises a great gap as well as a strong call towards theoretical development. Adapting to age, through systematically studying the entrepreneurial rules of C2C online stores and combining data analysis and depth-interviews , this paper reveals four entrepreneurial construct as the essential factors in C2C online store entrepreneurial process, namely entrepreneur traits, entrepreneurial network, resource acquisition and online stores'business performance, covering ten variables and aiming to reveal the internal mechanism of value creation of C2C online store entrepreneurial activities which has important strategic and realistic meanings for national economic development.The research contents and main conclusions of this paper are as follows:Firstly, entrepreneurs traits of the online stores including achievement motivation , internal locus of control, innovativeness and risk-taking, are not related to business performance;Secondly, entrepreneurs traits of the online stores are partially related to resource acquisition, among them achievement motivation is positively related to resource acquisition efficacy, internal locus of control and risk-taking is positively related to resource acquisition outcome and innovativeness is positively related to both resource acquisition efficacy and outcome;Thirdly, entrepreneurial network of online stores is partially related to business performance, and strong network is significantly and positively related to financial business performance;Fourthly, entrepreneurial network of online stores is positively related to resource acquisition; for online stores built in less than 1 year, weak ties are significantly and positively related to resource acquisition, strong ties are not related to resource acquisition; for online stores built in the range of 1 to 3 years, strong ties are significantly related to resource acquisition and weak ties are not related to resource acquisition; for online stores built for more than 3 years, weak ties are significantly related to resource acquisition and strong ties are not related to resource acquisition; Fifthly, resource acquisition of the online stores is partially related to business performance, and resource acquisition outcome is positively related to financial business performance;Sixthly, resource acquisition of the online stores does not play a mediating role between entrepreneur traits and business performance;Seventhly, resource acquisition of the online stores does play a mediating role between entrepreneurial network and business performance as a complete mediating role.This paper made the following contributions:Firstly, through investigating 178 C2C online entrepreneurial stores in the Chinese context, this paper explores the theoretical foundation of E-entrepreneurship. Research findings suggest that on single entrepreneurial theories or management theories can fully explain the entrepreneurial value creation mechanism under the C2C e-business model. On the contrary, the research on the relationships between entrepreneur traits, entrepreneurial network and business performance based on resource acquisition , needs an integrated theoretical perspective to explain. The empirical findings of this paper have a certain significance for compensating the gap of the traditional theories in explaining the new phenomenon of online entrepreneurship. Research conclusion has laid a solid foundation for forming the systematic entrepreneurial theory of e-business.Secondly, hypothesis 1 in the paper shows that the successful entrepreneurs of the online stores do not necessarily have special personality traits, such as achievement motivation ,internal locus of control , innovativeness and risk-taking. Thus, from the business operational level, entrepreneur traits are not a significantly predicting index of the online entrepreneurship. Everyone can succeed on the online stores.Thirdly, hypothesis 4 in the paper shows that entrepreneurial network plays a great role in resource acquisition, and the regression results of the subgroup samples show that, entrepreneurs of the online stores less than 1 year can obtain more resources from weak ties, entrepreneurs of the online stores between 1 to 3 years can obtain more resources from the strong ties, entrepreneurs of the online stores more than 3 years can obtain more resources from the weak ties. So, the online store owners should explore more of the weak ties at the start-up stage and in the long term strong ties suffer a limited role in resource acquisition and growth of the online stores. Fourthly, this paper suggests that strong ties are significantly and positively related to financial business performance, resource acquisition outcome is significantly and positively related to financial business performance. So, the online stores can improve the financial business performance from improve strong ties and promoting resource acquisition outcome.Fifthly, hypothesis 2 in this paper finds that innovativeness is significantly and positively related to resource acquisition efficacy and outcome. So, the online store owners should try more innovative ways of online marketing as well as business strategies to get access to more resources and thus get better performance.From an entrepreneurial perspective , this paper made an explorative research on the relationship between entrepreneur traits, entrepreneurial network and business performance of the online stores in the Chinese context, research findings reveal the uniqueness of the virtual market and thus fill the gap of traditional entrepreneurial management theories. This paper extends the classic entrepreneurship theories to the entrepreneurial activities of the online stores which have few been covered in the previous research and adopts the empirical method to explore and find the uniqueness of online store owners on the perspectives of resource acquisition and business performance improvement which can not been fully explained by the existing literature. Based on the comprehensive and depth interviews and large sample survey, the conclusion of this paper has a strong explanation power and we offered some suggestions for the common online entrepreneurs on the basis.
Keywords/Search Tags:Entrepreneur Traits, Entrepreneurial Network, Resource Acquisition, Business Performance, Online Stores
PDF Full Text Request
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