Research On The Relationship Between Entrepreneurship Resources And Entrepreneurial Performance Based On Strategic Perspective

Taken seriously both in developed and developing countries, entrepreneurialactivities are developing on the global scope like a raging fire. Entrepreneurialactivities play a great role in promoting the national or regional economics, includingproviding employment, stimulating demand, promoting technological innovation,nurturing outstanding entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial team, thus enhancingcomprehensive competitiveness of countries or regions. Entrepreneurial activity is afundamental factor as well as an important motive force for economic development.Based on this important role of entrepreneurial activities, the theoretical circlehas conducted a large scale of studies on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurialmanagement. A topic of the hot issues that scholars pay more attention to isentrepreneurial performance. What is entrepreneurial performance? How to measureit? How to improve it? These are always hot issues discussed by scholars. Indeed,there is no accepted standard on the definition and measurement of entrepreneurialperformance. Scholars hold different perspectives on means of improvingentrepreneurial performance. However, resources are undoubtedly crucial toentrepreneurial activities in this economic and information-exploding age. The aim ofentrepreneurial activities is boosting entrepreneurial performance, which is influencedby many factors, the most important being resources, among others. As the basis ofentrepreneurial activities, entrepreneurial resources determine the means of achievingentrepreneurial performance in start-ups. In other words, entrepreneurial resources donot only influence entrepreneurial performance directly, but also determine strategiesapplied. Entrepreneurs’ strategies are considered terminating factors betweenentrepreneurial resources and performance. When people talk about the process of entrepreneurial activities, entrepreneurialenvironment is always mentioned. This is because entrepreneurial activities cannotexist in the vacuum, but develop in a certain internal and external environment.Entrepreneurial environment may not affect entrepreneurial performance directly, butthe feature of entrepreneurial environment restrict and affect the operation of variousfactors of entrepreneurial activities, for instance, a large number of entrepreneurialresources exist in entrepreneurial environment. The same entrepreneurial resource indifferent environment will produce different entrepreneurial effects. So as we discussthe relationship between entrepreneurial resources and entrepreneurial performance,the effect of entrepreneurial environment cannot be neglected. Similarly,entrepreneurial environment will also affect and adjust the operation ofentrepreneurial resources.For the deep thinking to the problems mentioned above, this dissertationanalyzes and concludes the relationship among entrepreneurial resources, strategiesand performances on the basis of a great quantity of literature researches and analysis.The dissertation has also considered the adjustment effect of entrepreneurialenvironment between entrepreneurial resources and performance. On this basis, theresearch model of basic theories has been constructed; and on the basis of researchmodel the dissertation has proposed a hypothesis to the question this work studies.This dissertation collects data by questionnaires, undertakes structural equation model,processes the recycled data through the data analysis method of multiple regressionanalysis, and confirms the proposed hypothesis by analyzing the results and theexplanation. After verifying this hypothesis, the final conclusions are as followed:The Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Resources, Strategies andPerformanceThere are several means of classifying entrepreneurial resources. Thedissertation lends domestic scholar Mr. Song Lin’s (2007) theory, dividing entrepreneurial resources into management resources, human resources, capitalresources, policy resources, scientific and technological resources, and informationresources. Empirically speaking, they all have positive influence on entrepreneurialperformance. Statistics show when the six resources are all abundant, entrepreneurialperformance is boosted accordingly, which is in line with the dissertation’shypothesis. In addition, statistics show human resources plays a leading role inboosting entrepreneurial performance, with capital, information, management,science&technology and policy followed respectively. The roles of capital andinformation also make a big difference. Although management, science&technologyand policy play less important roles, they can not be neglected in fierce marketcompetition; therefore, enterprises should spare no efforts in obtaining maximumresources in order to boost entrepreneurial performance ultimately.In analyzing the intermediary function of entrepreneurial strategies, the authorreferred to many literatures, summarized related scholars’ studies, and finallyclassified entrepreneurial strategies as Innovation oriented strategy and Marketoriented strategy. When opting entrepreneurial strategies, enterprises tend to weightheir own resource situation; in this sense, entrepreneurial resources may influenceentrepreneurial strategies. As for Innovation oriented strategy, empirically speaking,all the six resources listed above have positive effect on it, because the increasing ofany kind leads to a better design and implementation of strategies. However, when itcomes to Market oriented strategy, the dissertation only attests the positive effect ofhuman, capital, information and management resources, with science&technologyand policy resources two exceptions, which also accords to the earlier hypothesis ofthe dissertation. Another topic, in entrepreneurial strategies’ intermediary function,is the influence of entrepreneurial strategies on entrepreneurial performance.According to empirical analysis, both Innovation oriented strategy and Marketoriented strategy help to improve entrepreneurial performance. Of the two, Innovation oriented strategy shows a more significant role in achieving better entrepreneurialperformance due to the market’s specialty, which is also identical with thedissertation’s hypothesis. It is safe to say entrepreneurial strategies serve a bridgingfunction between entrepreneurial resources and entrepreneurial performance. For onething, entrepreneurial resources boost entrepreneurial performance throughentrepreneurial strategies directly; for another, they even exert bigger though indirectinfluence of entrepreneurial strategies. To sum up, as the dissertation’s hypothesisstates, entrepreneurial strategies play positive role between entrepreneurial resourcesand entrepreneurial performance.The Regulatory Roles of Hostile Environment and Dynamic EnvironmentIn classifying entrepreneurial environment, the dissertation finally adopts awidely accepted method proposed by Lumpkin and Dess (2001), namely hostileenvironment and dynamic environment.Based upon empirical analysis, the hostile environment will enhance theinfluence of entrepreneurial strategies on entrepreneurial performance. Specifically,enterprises can make better use of their resources in hostile environment. The moreresources owned; the more efficient in resource use; the higher performance thencreated. That is to say, the importance of resources is highlighted in hostileenvironment. When the market environment is less hostile, there are moreopportunities and favorable conditions. No matter enterprises own high-qualityresources or not, they can obtain space for survival and development, win marketopportunities and boost entrepreneurial performance. In this case, the rolesentrepreneurial resources play on entrepreneurial performance may be covered.Whereas, when dynamic situation in external environment is apparent, thepositive effect of management, human, capital and policy resources onentrepreneurial performance will be affected and weakened, but the information andscience&technology resources will still display obvious positive effect. That’s to say, when the external environment changes rapidly, the previous managementexperience, the internal human resources, the relevant government policies andmeasures, and the financial resources possessed by enterprises cannot play positiveand promoting roles. However, when the enterprises attach importance to theinformation collection and the innovation of science and technology, they will haveinsight to the existed opportunities in the fast changing market so as to meet themarket need for new science&technology, thus taking the leadership, winningcompetitive advantage, and achieving expected goal. All of these echo to thedissertation’s hypothesis.