| Since the reform and opening up,China has attached great importance to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.In the current post-epidemic period,with the proposal of the dual circular economic development pattern of "taking the domestic big cycle as the main body",SMEs have assumed the major function of transforming the economic development mode.General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to the development of SMEs,emphasizing that "SMEs can do great things" and making "enhancing the innovation capability and specialization level of SMEs" the overall goal of the 14 th Five-Year Plan.The general objective of SME development in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period is to "enhance the innovation capability and professionalism of SMEs".From the trend of national policies,the development of SMEs in China cannot be separated from the word "innovation".SME innovation,as a holistic creative process,requires entrepreneurs to respond to the opportunities and threats that arise in the external environment,while taking into account the existing stock of resources,combinations and dynamic changes in the enterprise.As the subject needs to integrate and allocate resources and respond to the policy environment in a timely manner,the creative ability of entrepreneur is a key driver for the improvement of SMEs’ innovation capabilities.Individual entrepreneur is central to understanding and promoting innovation in the firm,and any policy that leads to enhanced innovation is unlikely to have a direct positive effect on SMEs,but can only produce indirect benefits through the actions of entrepreneurs;following this micro-logic,a central issue in enhancing the innovation capacity of SMEs is how to enhance the creativity of entrepreneurs.Entrepreneurial behavior requires a significant drain on physical and mental resources.If the depleted resources are not restored,entrepreneurs may "run out of batteries" and stop performing certain important entrepreneurial activities and using their capabilities,including the core of action that allows them to survive the wave of entrepreneurship-"creating ".However,in reality,entrepreneurs often face high work demands,and blurred work-life boundaries are a common professional characteristic of the entrepreneurial community;to build and grow their businesses,they must dig in and conceive new business ideas to gain a competitive advantage and avoid missing out on entirely new business opportunities by following the rules.As a result,entrepreneurs need to take the time to fully "recharge" after work to meet the need for diversified resource recovery to keep the entrepreneurial momentum going.Conversely,"constantly tight" non-working hours not only do not leave room for creative processes such as solving business challenges,discovering creative solutions and working collaboratively,but can also make entrepreneurs inefficient.Theoretical and empirical evidence is consistent in suggesting that recovery from non-work time has a significant impact on entrepreneurial creativity.In terms of recovery motivations and characteristics,entrepreneurs are an occupational group that faces a "recovery paradox" in the process that they are often prone to underrecovery due to the spillover of entrepreneurial stress into the non-work domain,yet are more dependent on effective recovery tools than other occupational groups due to their high creative work demands;in general,entrepreneurs have become the focus of current recovery research due to their high creativity.In general,entrepreneurs have become the focus of current research in the recovery field with their occupational characteristics such as high work demands and uncertainty,blurred work-life boundaries,and excessive entrepreneurial commitment.How do entrepreneurs recover from non-work time to meet the high creative work demands?In response to this research question,scholars have conducted a series of active explorations,but recovery research in entrepreneurial contexts is still at a preliminary stage,leading to uncertainty about the relationship between recovery strategies from non-working time and entrepreneurial creativity,and therefore it is necessary to explore this in depth.To address the current research gap,this paper focuses on the theme of "the relationship between out-of-working hours recovery experiences and entrepreneurial creativity" based on the literature on recovery and entrepreneurship at home and abroad,and proposes three research questions by introducing a mixedapproach perspective.First,from a variable-centered perspective,this paper proposes two types of recovery experiences based on the feature of psychological detachment: 1)The relationship between high-detached recovery experiences and entrepreneurial creativity.What is the relationship between entrepreneurs’ psychological detachment during non-working hours and entrepreneurial creativity?Are there boundary conditions for the relationship between the two in the entrepreneurial context? 2)The relationship between low-detached recovery experiences and entrepreneurial creativity.What is the relationship between the lowdetached recovery experiences of entrepreneurs during non-working hours and entrepreneurial creativity? What is the transmission mechanism of the relationship between the two? Second,from an person-centered perspective,this paper raises the following research questions: 3)The relationship between recovery experience profile and entrepreneurial creativity.Are there individual differences in the quantity(level of recovery)and quality(shape of recovery)of entrepreneurs’ non-working time recovery experiences? Do these differences predict the level of entrepreneurial creativity? Which entrepreneurial characteristics predict these differences? To answer the above research questions in depth,three main research efforts were conducted in this paper.First,the relationship between high-detached recovery experiences and entrepreneurial creativity is explored in Study 1.The theoretical hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship between psychological detachment(a core concept of high-detached recovery experiences)and entrepreneurial creativity,is constructed based on the Demand-Induced Strain Compensation Recovery(DISC-R)Model,and the moderating variables that may influence entrepreneurial work demands and resources-entrepreneurial stressors-are introduced to examine the boundary conditions of the relationship between psychological detachment and entrepreneurial creativity.Through a two-stage data collecting process and quantitative analysis of 194 entrepreneurs in Southwest China,the results show that:1)psychological detachment has an inverted U-shaped effect on entrepreneurial creativity;2)entrepreneurial stressors moderate the inverted U-shaped relationship between psychological detachment and entrepreneurial creativity.Specifically,the inverted U-shaped relationship is more pronounced among entrepreneurs who face low level of entrepreneurial stressors;the curvilinear relationship is weakened if they face higher levels of entrepreneurial stressors.Second,the relationship between low-detached recovery experiences and entrepreneurial creativity is explored in Study 2.Based on the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping(TSC),challenge appraisal to entrepreneurship is introduced as a mechanism variable to explore the dynamic role it plays in the relationship between two low-detached recovery experiences-problem-solving pondering(PSP)and positive work reflection(PWR)and entrepreneurial creativity.Specifically,reciprocal causal model of low-detached recovery experiences and challenge appraisal to entrepreneurship(CAE),as well as hypotheses of direct and indirect effects of both on entrepreneurial creativity(EC)are constructed to test the roles of these variables in the dynamic process of entrepreneurial stress spillover-cognitive appraisal-coping.Using a three-stage longitudinal data collection process and analysis method with a cross-lagged panel model based on 267 entrepreneurs in Southwest China,the results show that: 1)PSP and CAE form a "gaining spiral" of EC.Specifically,first,PSP and CAE have a direct positive impact on EC;second,CAE mediates between PSP and EC;finally,PSP mediates between CAE and EC,i.e.,PSP and CAE embody a mutually reinforcing two-way causal relationship.2)PWR and CAE show a unidirectional cause-effect relationship.Specifically,the effect of PWR on CAE is not significant whereas the direct effect on EC is significant;the positive effect of CAE on PWR is partially significant and the mediating role of PWR between CAE and EC is significant.Third,the relationship between the recovery experience profiles and entrepreneurial creativity is explored in Study 3.Using individual-centered approach and grounded in the Job Demand-Resources(JD-R)model,three exploratory questions are raised focusing on four high-detached recovery experiences(psychological detachment,relaxation,mastery,and control)and two low-detached recovery experiences(problem-solving pondering and positive work reflection): 1)Do entrepreneurs’ recovery experiences differ in terms of quantity(level of recovery)and quality(shape of recovery)(profile)? 2)What entrepreneurial characteristics influence the attribution of the recovery experience profiles to entrepreneurs? 3)How do recovery experience profiles predict entrepreneurial creativity? Three entrepreneurial characteristics that are associated with the recovery process of entrepreneursentrepreneurial experience(nascent entrepreneurs/ serial entrepreneurs),entrepreneurial size(solo entrepreneurs/employer entrepreneurs),and entrepreneurial motivation(necessity entrepreneurs/opportunity entrepreneurs)-are introduced as potential predictors of the recovery experience profiles.This paper surveys 336 entrepreneurs in Southwest China for conducting a two-stage data collection process and makes an empirical analysis by using latent profile analysis and regression mixed modeling.Our research results show that: 1)entrepreneurs demonstrate four types of recovery experience profiles during non-working time: high detachment,detach-low relax,low control-problem pondering,and high control-positive reflection.2)Three entrepreneurial characteristics(entrepreneurial experience,entrepreneurial size,and entrepreneurial motivation)predict recovery experience profile attributions of entrepreneurs.Specifically,first-time entrepreneurs have a higher probability of belonging to the low control-problem pondering profile;solo entrepreneurs have a higher probability of belonging to the detach-low relax profile;opportunity entrepreneurs have a higher probability of belonging to the low control-problem pondering profile;and opportunity entrepreneurs have a higher probability of belonging to the high control-positive reflection profile compared to the detach-low relax profile.3)Entrepreneurs’ recovery experience profiles predict differences in entrepreneurial creativity.Specifically,the high control-positive reflection profile reports the highest level of creativity,followed by the low control-problem pondering profile,third by the detach-low relax profile,and finally by the high detachment profile;in a two-by-two comparison of the four profiles,the level of entrepreneurial creativity of the high control-positive reflection and low control-problem pondering profiles were significantly different from the other three profiles,respectively,while the detach-low relax profile and the high detachment profiles do not differ significantly.This paper proposes research questions based on theoretical background and realistic context,and explores the relationship between recovery experience in nonworking time and entrepreneurial creativity based on a mixed perspective that combines variable and person-centered approach,with the following main novelties.Novelty in research themes and research lens.First,this paper constructs a systematic recovery experience framework with multiple perspectives and classifications.On the one hand,it combines the variable-centered perspective with person-centered perspective under a unified framework;on the other hand,it divides the recovery experience under the variable-centered perspective into high-detached recovery experiences and low-detached recovery experience according to the feature of detachment from work during non-working time,which is a major novelty in research themes and perspectives.Second,this paper breaks the limitations of previous entrepreneurial recovery studies and focuses on a specific recovery activity and explores its relationship with entrepreneurial creativity from the experiential perspective of recovery.The potential advantage of studying entrepreneurial recovery from an experiential perspective is that it can directly understand individuals’ perceptions of recovery experiences to reflect their true recovery status,which is another major novelty of this paper.Finally,this paper goes beyond the variable-centered research paradigm of previous entrepreneurship research and explores the differences in the degree and shape of entrepreneurs’ recovery experiences by focusing on a complete entrepreneurial entity.The person-centered approach explores how recovery experiences are combined into unique recovery configurations based on individual characteristics,which can help find "subgroups" of entrepreneurs with heterogeneous recovery experiences and improve the relevance of theory application.Novelty in theory.First,this paper expands the traditional recovery experience research system which considers psychological detachment as a necessary condition for recovery.Through a systematic literature review,this paper finds that psychological detachment is not a necessary factor for individuals to recover resources during nonworking hours;individuals have the opportunity to recover through active problemsolving and work reappraisal under low-detached situations.Second,this paper integrates the inconsistent findings of psychological detachment with individual behaviors and outcomes in the existing recovery literature,argues that there is an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship between psychological detachment and entrepreneurial creativity,and explores the potential boundary conditions of the relationship-entrepreneurial stressors,which is a sort of theoretical contribution to the existing literature in this paper.In addition,previous studies on low-detached recovery experiences have not considered its potential mechanism of action or confused it with the mechanism of high-detached recovery experience when exploring its influence on individual creativity.It is a bold attempt to dynamically combine the low-detached recovery process with the theoretical process of stress-cognitive appraisal-coping of entrepreneurs,which is another innovation of the research theory.Finally,recovery research in entrepreneurial contexts is still in its infancy,and the limited research has paid little attention to the heterogeneity of entrepreneurs’ recovery.Which entrepreneurs have greater specific recovery needs? Do entrepreneurs prefer high-detached recovery experiences or low-detached recovery experiences during non-working hours?Although the academic community has begun to discuss the issue of heterogeneity in entrepreneurial recovery interventions and its importance to entrepreneurial recovery research,empirical research related to this issue has not yet emerged.Based on an person-centered approach,this paper introduces three entrepreneurial characteristicsentrepreneurial experience,entrepreneurial size,and entrepreneurial motivation-as predictor variables of individual entrepreneurial recovery patterns,expanding the antecedent research on recovery experience in the field of entrepreneurial recovery.Novelty in Methodology.First,this paper uses a cross-lagged panel model(CLPM)to analyze the reciprocal causal relationship between low-detached recovery experiences and challenge appraisal to entrepreneurship.The cross-lagged panel modelbased mediation analysis performs significantly better in terms of causal inference and conclusion bias than the mediation effect test on cross-sectional data.However,current entrepreneurship research has not paid attention to the superiority of cross-lagged panel models in causal inference.this paper uses this method to make inferences about the causal relationships between two low-detached recovery experiences,challenge appraisal to entrepreneurship,and entrepreneurial creativity,which is a major innovation in research methodology.Second,this paper uses latent profile analysis(LPA)to categorize entrepreneurs into different recovery types(profiles)and constructs a regression mixed model by adding covariates(predictors and outcome factors)to verify their predictors and their effects on entrepreneurial creativity.Latent profiles are essentially "clustering" techniques designed to identify hidden groups from observed data;they are similar to clustering techniques,but more flexible because they can incorporate covariates to construct regression mixed models that test more complex relationships.The use of latent profile analysis as an analytical tool is still quite limited in current entrepreneurship research.Based on four high-detached recovery experiences and two low-detached recovery experiences,this paper uses latent profile analysis techniques to determine the number of recovery experience profiles of entrepreneurs and constructs regression mixed models to test the predictive effects of entrepreneurial characteristics on recovery experience profiles and the predictive effects of recovery experience profiles on entrepreneurial creativity,which is another innovative point in the research methodology. |
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