Research On Entrepreneurial Identity,strategic Decision-making Logic,and Innovative Opportunity Identification

In the contemporary society,entrepreneurship plays as a key driving force to economy and social development.Entrepreneurship has also become an effective way to help some countries out of the recession.Overcapacity in traditional industries is one of the existing challenges that China faces.As such,the value chain must be moved up from factor-driven and investment-driven to entrepreneurship and innovation driven.To this end,the government has highlighted entrepreneurship as an important instrument.As China's investment environment has been significantly improved,the government has put forward various supporting policies to encourage entrepreneurship,including the simplification of registration process,fees cuts,tax incentives,the replacement sales tax with value-added tax),and the construction of entrepreneurial platforms.Against the background of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation”,the number of new ventures and platforms has grown explosively,which has reached at a new highest number.While China has made remarkable achievements in improving the investment environment,it is still facing the dual challenges originated from the international and domestic markets.Compared with developed countries,companies in China,especially new firms,are exposed to high uncertainty in market and institution and resource constraints,which decreases the survival quality and growth potentials of new firms in China.Recently,some scholars have implied that high mortality rate is one of the typical characteristics of entrepreneurship in China.Notably,the survival rate of new firms is low,and very few can survive or even achieve superior performance.Therefore,the issue of improving the survival quality of start-ups should be garnered considerable attentions from practice and research.In 2017,Tencent research institute reported that the average survival time for new firms in China is 4 four-year based on a sample of 150 bankrupt firms.They also highlighted that high mortality rate frequently happens in intelligent hardware,education,real estate,automobile,O2 O and other fields.So,this requires us to ask the following practical questions,why some start-ups can survive and achieve growth potential,and even develop into unicorns,while others cannot escape from the dilemma of failure or even go bankrupt? How can we cope with such entrepreneurial challenges?A growing body of research has demonstrated that strategic decision-making logics have powerful influence on entrepreneurial behaviors.Interests in entrepreneurship as a domain of research have intensified on the effect of entrepreneurial identity on strategic decision-making orientation and entrepreneurial behaviors.Hence,this leads us to ask five theoretical questions:(1)is entrepreneurial identity an important factor that could affect the effectiveness of innovative opportunity identification for new firms?(2)How can entrepreneurial identity affect the choice of strategic decision-making logics?(3)What roles do strategic decision-making logics play in identifying innovative opportunities?(4)Are there boundary conditions for the link between strategic decision-making logics and innovative opportunity identification?(5)Can strategic decision-making logics play a mediation role in the link between entrepreneurial identity and innovative opportunity identification in the entrepreneurial process?In this study,I developed a theoretical framework of entrepreneurial identity,strategic decision-making logics,and innovative opportunity identification in light of related literatures on identity/social identity theory,decision-making theory,opportunity,and contingency theory.I investigated the mechanism on how strategic decision-making logics(causation vs.effectuation)can impact the effectiveness of innovative opportunity identification,what are the differing impacts of different entrepreneurial identities(Darwinians,Communitarians,and Missionary)on strategic decision-making logics.Further,I analyzed the moderating effect of firm size and industry growth on the relations between strategic decision-making logics and innovative opportunity identification.And I also examined the mediating effect of strategic decision-making logics on the linkage between entrepreneurial identity and innovative opportunity identification.In so doing,I selected multiple case studies approach with five high-tech firms to validate the proposed theoretical framework.Based on this,this study proposed 13 corresponding theoretical hypotheses.To empirically test the hypotheses,430 questionnaires from a sample of 215 new firms in Beijing and Changchun were selected and analyzed.In the methodology section,I used SPSS 22.0 in this study to conduct empirical analysis and thus,test hypotheses I raised.The results showed as follows:(1)There is a positive relationship between entrepreneurial identity and strategic decision-making logics.Specifically,Darwinians is positively associated with the choice of causation;The positive relationship between Darwinians and effectuation is not significant and not supported by data;Communitarians is positively associated with the choice of effectuation,while the relationship between Communitarians and causation is nonsignificant and not supported by data;Missionaries has a positive relationship with causation and effectuation.(2)Strategic decision-making logics are positively associated with innovative opportunity identification.To be specific,causation and effectuation are positively associated with innovative opportunity identification.Results indicated that the positive relationship between the interaction of causation and effectuation and innovative opportunity identification are not supported by the data.However,results indicate the interrelationship between causation and effectuation will offset each then decrease the positive their impacts on innovative opportunity identification.(3)For the moderator: a)firm size: firm size has a negative impact on the positive association between causation and innovative opportunity identification;On the contrary,the positive impact on the positive association between effectuation and innovative opportunity identification are not significant.b)industry growth: industry growth has a negative impact on the positive association between causation and innovative opportunity identification,while industry growth has a positive impact on the positive association between effectuation and innovative opportunity identification.(4)There is a positive relationship between entrepreneurial identity and innovative opportunity identification.Specifically,Darwinians,Communitarians,and Missionaries are all positively associated with innovative opportunity identification.(5)For the mediator: strategic decision-making logics play a mediation role in the links between entrepreneurial identity and innovative opportunity identification.To be specific,causation plays as a full mediator in the relationship between Darwinians,Missionaries,and innovative opportunity identification.Effectuation plays as a full mediator in the relationship between Communitarians,Missionaries,and innovative opportunity identification.Combining frontier issues in the fields of strategic management-strategic decision-making logic,and entrepreneurship-entrepreneurial identity and the research gaps existing in strategic decision-making logic literature and identity/social identity theory,I developed a theoretical model and empirically tested it with 215 new firms in China's transition economy.The goal of this study is to reveal the mechanism of how strategic decision-making logics play,to investigate the possible impacts of different entrepreneurial identities(Darwinians,Communitarians,and Missionary)on strategic decision-making logics.I also focused on the boundary conditions(i.e.,firm size and industry growth)for the relationship between strategic decision-making logics and innovative opportunity identification.And fundamentally,the integration of identity/social identity from the psychology field into entrepreneurship domain seemed warranted as it could advance our understanding of entrepreneurial opportunity identification.Therefore,this study makes a number of contributions to research and theory in entrepreneurship:(1)This study deepens research on the influential factors of strategic decision-making logics by proposing that entrepreneurial identity is one of the key influential factors that could affect the selection of strategic decision-making logics and innovative opportunity identification in entrepreneurship.(2)This study fine-grains research on the results of strategic decision-making logics by arguing that apart from firm performance,different degrees of innovation in opportunities could be a critical outcome for strategic decision-making logics.And fundamentally,I also argued and proved that despite entrepreneurs or new firms could use causation and effectuation in tandem,the synergistic between these two approaches could negatively impact the positive relationship between strategic decision-making logics and innovative opportunity identification.(3)This study also extends strategic decision-making theory by developing two boundary conditions.I argued that different levels of firm size and industry growth can strengthen or weaken the impacts of causation and effectuation on innovative opportunity identification he goal-directed and means to guide and the relationship between innovative opportunity recognition.