Research On The Mechanism Of Entrepreneurs' Human Capital On Entrepreneurial Success

Entrepreneurship is the source of strength for promoting economic growth,revitalizing innovation,relieving employment pressure,and maintaining social stability,which is also an important career choice for entrepreneurs to obtain well-being,satisfaction and achievement.With the comprehensive and effective implementation of the policy of "Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation" in China,driven by the "Internet Plus" strategy and "Made in China 2025" policy in dual direction,innovation and entrepreneurship have ushered in a golden era,entrepreneurship has been regarded as an ideal career choice.However,the situation that start-ups are confronted with difficulties in growth remains almost unimproved,which has motivated policy makers,scholars and entrepreneurs to ponder how to effectively elevate the success rate of entrepreneurship.Human capital,accumulated from formal education,entrepreneurship education and training and previous experience,is the main resource endowment of entrepreneurs,which is essential for acquiring sustainable competitive advantage,and it is conducive to exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities,cultivating entrepreneurial competences and coping with the effect of environmental uncertainty,resulting in promotion of entrepreneurial success.From the perspective of the entrepreneurial process,the paper introduces the entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation and entrepreneurship competence as intermediary variables,taking into account the impact of the external environment,introducing environmental uncertainties as moderator,in order to systematically explore the internal effect mechanism of the entrepreneurs' human capital on entrepreneurial success.This article focuses on the following issues to be analyzed: First of all,is entrepreneurial success impacted by the resource endowment of entrepreneur' human capital? which path does human capital accumulate from? From which approach accumulated human capital has the greatest impact on entrepreneurial success? Secondly,what are the intrinsic affecting paths of entrepreneurs' human capital on entrepreneurial success? How does the entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation and entrepreneurial competence affect the venture success? What do the role they play between the entrepreneurs' human capital and entrepreneurial success? Are there other contingent factors in the process of entrepreneurs' human capital transformation into entrepreneurial success? What is the role of environmental uncertainty in the internal transformation process? Therefore,this study constructs a model of the relationship between entrepreneurs' human capital and entrepreneurial success,and systematically analyzes the mechanism between entrepreneurs' human capital on entrepreneurial success.The article takes the newly-created enterprises as the survey subject,through carrying out semi-structured interview,small-scale pretest and large-scale formal questionnaire survey to explore the relationship among the entrepreneurs' human capital,entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation,entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial success,which makes a rewarding attempt in terms of enriching the theoretical research and empirical research of relevant variables.First of all,through making review of entrepreneurship-related theory,resource-based theory,human capital theory,organizational imprinting theory and related previous literature,entrepreneurs' human capital,entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation,entrepreneurial competence are considered to impact entrepreneurial success.Secondly,considering the special time that Chinese economic growth pattern has been transferred from efficiency-driven to innovation-driven,currently the entrepreneurial environment is turbulent and filled with fierce competition.Therefore,it is necessary to take consideration of the contingency factor of the environment,leveraging environmental uncertainty as a moderator variable,and constructing entrepreneurs' human capital-entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation-entrepreneurial success,and entrepreneurs' human capital-entrepreneurial competence-entrepreneurial success dual path conceptual model,and putting forward relevant hypothesis.Thirdly,265 valid questionnaires were collected form entrepreneurs that from nine provinces and cities locate in inland and coastal areas across the country.Based on analysis of semi-structured interviews,utilizing reliability and validity analysis,correlation and regression analysis and Bootstrap analysis to examine 37 research hypotheses.Fourthly,on the basis of the result,the conclusion of this paper is discussed,theoretical contribution and practical implication are extracted,the limitations are indicated and the future research directions are proposed.The data analysis results show that: Firstly,entrepreneurs' human capital and its various dimensions have significant positive effect on entrepreneurial success.Secondly,entrepreneurs' human capital and its various dimensions have a positive impact on the entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation,and its two dimensions—incremental and radical innovative opportunity exploitation.The positive effect of entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation(incremental and radical innovation opportunity)on entrepreneurial success has also been verified.Thirdly,the positive impact of entrepreneurs' human capital and its various dimensions on entrepreneurial competence as well as entrepreneurial competence on entrepreneurial success has also been verified.Fourthly,it confirms the partial mediating role of entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation and entrepreneurial competence between entrepreneurs' human capital and entrepreneurial success.Fifthly,the entrepreneurial competence has positive impact on the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities,and the entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation have the chain dual mediation effect between entrepreneurs' human capital and entrepreneurial success.Lastly,environmental uncertainty,i.e.,the dynamic and hostile moderating effect between entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial success is established,and the moderating effect between the entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation and entrepreneurial success is partly established,because the negative moderating effect of dynamic and hostile environment on the relationship between incremental innovative opportunity exploitation and entrepreneurial success are not established.This article enriches the research related to entrepreneurial success from the perspectives of opportunities and competence,constructing a model concerning the relationship between entrepreneurs' human capital and entrepreneurial success,and has further deepened the research on the relationship between entrepreneurs' human capital and entrepreneurial success.First of all,the operational definition of entrepreneurial success construct is clarified,how to measure entrepreneurial success construct is also further improved,the new entrepreneurial success research perspective is unfolded,the empirical research of entrepreneurial success construct is deepened.Besides,the entrepreneurial success criterion for start-ups and entrepreneurs are provided by this paper.Secondly,it expands the research path for entrepreneurial success,and deepens the understanding of the intrinsic mechanism of entrepreneurs' human capital that affects entrepreneurial success,and from the perspective of opportunity and competence to propose entrepreneurs' human capital-entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation-entrepreneurial success,and entrepreneurs' human capital-entrepreneurial competence-entrepreneurial success dual-intermediary and dual-path conceptual model,which enriches the research on the dependent variables of the entrepreneurial success,and answers the question of how entrepreneurs' human capital impact entrepreneurial success to some extant.Thirdly,it reveals the important role of entrepreneurship education and training as a key dimension of entrepreneurs' human capital plays in affecting entrepreneurial success,which affords adequate practical basis for appreciating entrepreneurship education.Fourthly,the entrepreneurial success model moderated by environmental uncertainty is integrative constructed,by examining environmental uncertainty,namely,dynamic and hostile moderate between entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation and entrepreneurial success and between entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial success respectively,which has established the contingency effect that environment has in terms of creating new ventures successfully,and the referential significance for start-ups how to confront environmental uncertainty is also relatively obvious.