Research Of Entrepreneurs' Growth Mechanisms: A Multi-Dimensional Analytical Framework

Entrepreneurs, like the kings of economic kingdoms, are pushing the social and economic development by creating a new balance in market. Traditional researchers have not reached agreement on how the entrepreneurs grow from an ordinary people to kings in economy, what factors during this process are positive and negative, and how these factors interact with one another.By reviewing the existing literature, we believe that three theoretic issues of this area should be identified clearly:(1) a uniform analysis framework of entrepreneurs'development in an integrated way is not established, which leads to the inconsistency of the basic concepts and identification of the variables; (2) a panorama model of entrepreneurs'development is not proposed, hardly revealing their growth mechanisms; and (3) the mechanisms of entrepreneurs development at different stages are not explored empirically and in depth, which results in the ineffective evaluation of the mechanisms. To address the above issues, this research, based on individual perspective of entrepreneurs and with a series of work, is aimed to study the various factors influencing the entrepreneurs'development.Research 1:Four entrepreneurs are selected as the research objects, the influential development factors of which are studied as cases in a complete way. We start the research work by screening the research findings from other academic subjects and consolidating nine categories of factors regarding the entrepreneurs'development from the traditional studies. Those nine categories are analyzed and discussed in a hierarchical approach to target the key events of their development processes, based on which it is concluded that even though distinctive features can be seen in the entrepreneurs'development, different degrees of influence of those factors on the development of entrepreneurs which are derived from the past research are prevailing.Research 2:By reviewing the literature and analyzing the cases, we make overall introductions and comments about the traditional researches of entrepreneurs'development in economics, sociology, psychology, and management, reveal the limits of the past studies and the reasons, and explore the effectiveness of integrated studies, from which the corresponding solutions are proposed. Based on findings of case studies and literature review, the concept models of entrepreneurs'development and concrete verification directions are suggested.Research 3:We conduct explorative studies by analyzing the factors and in the framework of concept models, and with three stages of work conclude as follows:in terms of their contents, the influential factors of entrepreneurs'development can be classified into seven categories: entrepreneurs'network, personal traits, geographic environment, resources for growth, growth opportunities, incentives to development, and entrepreneurial skills. The multi-dimension analysis framework which is based on the seven groups of factors is the first analysis structure to completely reveal the findings of traditional researches from multiple perspectives. Research 4:We select out of 262,144 potential models the optimization ones comparatively better demonstrating the development of entrepreneurs with the full model exploration approach of structural equation and traditional researches. By employing such analysis techniques as comparative fitting and multiple regression analysis, we examine the mediation effects and interaction effects among the factors, verify the concept models, and proceed to conclude the study with a diamond model for entrepreneurs' development. This new model is the verification of the 12 relevant researches conducted in the past, and the complete demonstration of the interaction mechanisms of various influential factors regarding the entrepreneurs'development. The model also verifies the effectiveness of the 12 relevant researches.Research 5:Based on the past researches and the analysis such as deviation analysis and multiple factor groups of structural equation, it is concluded from the samples of entrepreneurs at different stages of a time scale that the development of entrepreneurs can be divided into four stages according to the performances of the three factors:entrepreneurs'network, geographic environment, and entrepreneurial skills; the development mechanisms vary with the stages; and the characteristics of different stages derived from this classification are highly consistent with other relevant researches, and the study results are the supplement and improvement of life cycle theory of entrepreneurs. Moreover, the factors interacting mechanisms of entrepreneurs'development in Guizhou are different from the East-middle areas in China.As a result, systematic reviews and summaries of the above studies are made, in which the advancement in theory and practicality are discussed, and the studies'limitations and the issues to be improved are also analyzed in an objective manner.