Research On The Mechanism Of Venture Advocate In Peasants' Entrepreneurial Transformation

Under the background of the strategic transformation of China's issues relating to agriculture,rural areas and farmers from poverty alleviation to rural revitalization,peasants' entrepreneurial transformation(that is,the transformation from subsistence peasant entrepreneurship to opportunistic agriculture entrepreneurship)has become the main way for peasant entrepreneurs to enhance their self-development ability,alleviate and eliminate farmers' poverty,and constitutes an important transforming force for rural regional economic and social development.However,peasant entrepreneurs in informal market are limited to the behavioral characteristic of "ambiguity aversion" and lack the necessary entrepreneurial resources,so it is difficult to cross the institutional gap between informal and formal markets by their own strength,which makes venture advocate indispensable for their successful transformation.Venture advocate not only provides necessary resources to enable peasant entrepreneurs in informal market to surpass subsistence peasant entrepreneurship,but also creates corresponding institutional conditions to support them to realize opportunistic agricultural entrepreneurship development in formal market.However,there is no literature to systematically analyze and study the mechanism of venture advocate in peasants' entrepreneurial transformation.Therefore,this dissertation,against the background of poverty reduction by peasants' entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation by developing agricultural industries in China,aiming at the process of peasants' entrepreneurial transformation and the venture advocate behaviors among it,selects 173 cases of peasant entrepreneurship from the samples of the 1125 documentaries broadcasted by "Zhi Fu Jing" in CCTV from 2014 to 2018,and adopts the methods of logical deduction,grounded theory,multi-case study and Agent-based model simulation to explore the process of entrepreneurial transformation and the role of venture advocate behaviors.Then it analyzes the mechanism of venture advocate system to the formalization of peasant entrepreneurship,and verifies the mechanism of venture advocate system by ABM simulation,thus summarizing the research conclusions of this dissertation.Results are as follows:Entrepreneurial transformation is a systematic transition from closed to open system and from informal to formal market,in which peasant entrepreneurs break through their psychological confinement of "ambiguity aversion" under the inducement of environmental triggers,break the equilibrium formed by subsistence entrepreneurial system in closed and informal market environment with the help of venture advocates,and capture new business opportunities through business model innovation to realize opportunistic entrepreneurial development.Therefore,factors such as venture advocate behaviors are brought into the analysis of entrepreneurial transformation.Based on logical deduction,a dynamic system model of entrepreneurial transformation characterized by growth-oriented and openness is constructed,and the process of entrepreneurial transformation is described and depicted,which lays a foundation for further research in this dissertation.The model also reveals that such transformation is not only individual behavior but also group behavior,that is,peasant's entrepreneurial transformation exerts bottom up influence to the entrepreneurial system of rural venture community,driving industry-related farmers to enter the formal market,and realizing more peasant's entrepreneurial transformation,thus generating broader effects on poverty alleviation.During the formalization of peasant entrepreneurship,four types of venture advocates,private,academic,government and NGO,take a series of initiatives to overcome the structural institutional voids,not only constructing appropriate incentives and infrastructures but also bridging the differences in norms,values,and understandings between informal and formal institutions,facilitating entrepreneurs' changes at individual,network and system levels.Overall,venture advocates and their initiatives construct the venture advocate system which is a universal intermediary to support the formalization,and improving the stability of the system will help to realize the changes that could improve the local market and institutional environment and induce more farmers' transition behavior,eventually forming a virtuous circle of formalization.In view of the lack of in-depth analysis of the mechanism of institutional intermediary to overcome the structural institutional voids in the existing literature,this study expands institutional intermediary into the concept of "universal intermediary" by introducing venture advocate system,and explains how venture advocate system can promote the formalization of peasant entrepreneurship.The mechanism of improving the stability of the system is revealed.It is also found that entrepreneurs can change their roles after completing the transformation.As venture advocates,they can further strengthen the system,accelerate the formation of a virtuous circle of formalization,thus,enriching the institutional intermediary theory in the context of formalization of peasant entrepreneurship.In addition,previous studies based on institutional economics described formalization as a conscious strategic choice based on cost-benefit analysis.From the perspective of organizational institutionalism,this dissertation shows that although peasant entrepreneurs' rational considerations can encourage their formalization,the existing informal understandings,values and norms will affect their adoption of formal production practices.Through a combined view of institutional economics and organizational institutionalism,a comprehensive understanding of formalization is realized.On the basis of explaining the phenomenon of entrepreneurial transformation and revealing the nature of formalization,the reality of venture advocate in peasants' entrepreneurial transformation is restored through agent-based modeling and simulation,and the theoretical framework proposed in this dissertation is verified.Due to the limitation of the case study method,the theoretical framework obtained in this dissertation,that is,the venture advocate system as a universal institutional intermediary helps peasants' entrepreneurial transformation and formalization,has not been demonstrated.In view of this,developed a venture advocate ABM by integrating case analysis and econometric regression to simulate the situation that entrepreneurs seek support from advocates when they encounter different types of institutional problems.The results of case analysis are taken as the basis for formulating agent behavior rules,and then the relevant information of 459 specific venture advocate initiatives is extracted from 173 selected cases to form basic data.After completing and quantifying the basic data according to the principle of "evidence triangle",the empirical data-driven specific behavior rules are obtained through econometric regression,which is used as the decision logic of entrepreneur agents in ABM.Then,using empirical data related to specific initiatives for ABM model fitting,and the overall distribution of various advocates solving institutional problems to verify the running results of the model.Therefore,Agent-based modeling and simulation is used to verify the mechanism of venture advocate system to the formalization of peasant entrepreneurship.The research results of this dissertation are helpful to understand the process of peasants' entrepreneurial transformation and the institutional logic behind it,and provide an attempt and empirical direction for studying the mechanism of venture advocate in peasants' entrepreneurial transformation from an institutional perspective.It provides a reference for policy makers to guide poverty reduction through entrepreneurship and industrial poverty alleviation,at the same time,it also provides suggestions for advocates to effectively implement advocate initiatives,and also provides guidance for peasant entrepreneurs who intend to carry out entrepreneurial transformation to formulate strategies.In a word,this dissertation enriches the theory of venture advocate behavior and the theory of institutional intermediary to a certain extent,which is beneficial to the in-depth development of the research on the cross-field of informal economy and entrepreneurship,and also provides a reference for the innovation of poverty governance system and the analysis of modern agricultural industries development strategy.