Research On The Impact Of Virtual Community Governance On User Entrepreneurial Intention

In order to enhance the innovation vitality of all people and further stimulate the innovation and entrepreneurship of the public groups,the State Council and various ministries and commissions have successively promulgated and implemented a series of policy documents.Such as “Opinions of the State Council on Several Policy Measures to Vigorously Promote Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation”(Guo Fa [2015] No.32),“Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening the Implementation of Innovation-driven Development Strategy to Further Promote the Deep Development of Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation”,and so on.With the emergence of user-entrepreneurial activities such as “Mafengwo”,“Guokr”,“Jiligala”,“Niu Technologies” and “Smartisan”,China’s industry and academia have gradually realized the important role of user-entrepreneurship in promoting the formation of “mass entrepreneurship”.User entrepreneurship can stimulate interactive innovation among the masses,effectively unleash the dynamics of social innovation and entrepreneurship,and contribute to the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy.At the same time,there is growing evidence that virtual communities provide the ground for users to start their own businesses and are a key context for carrying out user entrepreneurial activities.However,the reality in China is that user entrepreneurship in virtual communities has not yet formed a scale effect.Many users of virtual communities have low entrepreneurial intentions and often shelve or sell their innovations to producers such as enterprises,which leads to poor user entrepreneurial activities.Given that user entrepreneurial intention is a key prerequisite for entrepreneurial activities and an important indicator for predicting user entrepreneurial behavior,it is necessary to explore the mechanism of user entrepreneurial intention.Thus provide theoretical insights and practical guidance for stimulating entrepreneurial activities among a wider range of end-user individuals.From the existing literature,it is found that the current research on the generation mechanism of user intention to start a business is still insufficient and there is more room for research.First,the focus of current user entrepreneurship-related literature is still on user entrepreneurial behavior,and user entrepreneurial intention is not considered as a core research variable.Given that entrepreneurial intention is a key prerequisite for users’ entrepreneurial activities and an important indicator for predicting users’ entrepreneurial behavior,it is important to conduct research on user entrepreneurial intention to develop theories related to user entrepreneurship.Second,existing studies have mostly adopted qualitative research methods to explore issues related to user entrepreneurial intentions,and there are relatively few empirical studies on the relationship between the influence of relevant factors on user entrepreneurial intentions.Therefore,there is an urgent need to build a research framework on user entrepreneurial intentions and conduct empirical studies to verify the theoretical framework.Third,existing studies have not yet revealed the mechanism of user entrepreneurial intentions from a holistic and systematic perspective,resulting in a lack of systematic understanding of the formation mechanism of user entrepreneurial intentions.Specifically,previous studies tend to focus on the influence of individual and contextual factors on user entrepreneurial intentions alone,ignoring the effective integration of individual and contextual factors.Therefore,it is important to explore how user entrepreneurial intentions are generated in virtual communities by integrating individual and contextual factors,which is of great theoretical significance for a more comprehensive picture of the mechanisms of user entrepreneurial intentions and a deeper understanding of user entrepreneurship.Based on the above practical development and theoretical background,this study relies on user innovation theory,self-determination theory and social capital theory to build a theoretical framework of “virtual community governance-user knowledge sharing-entrepreneurial opportunity innovation-user entrepreneurial willingness”,and aims to reveal the influence mechanism of virtual community governance on user entrepreneurial willingness.Based on the theoretical foundation,literature review,exploratory case study and hypothesis derivation,this study proposes 17 research hypotheses.It is also empirically tested by conducting a large-scale questionnaire survey on users of Xiaomi MIUI community,Huawei Pollen Club and DF(DRIVE THE FUTURE)ROBOT creator community.An empirical analysis of a sample of 359 virtual community users led to the following conclusions:(1)the level of virtual community governance plays an important role in stimulating user entrepreneurial intentions,and facilitative governance plays a different role than constrained governance,with facilitative governance having an inverted U-shaped effect on user entrepreneurial intentions and constrained governance having a positive effect on user entrepreneurial intentions;(2)user knowledge sharing plays a mediating role in the relationship between facilitative governance,constrained governance and user entrepreneurial intention;(3)newness of entrepreneurial opportunity plays a mediating role in the relationship between constrained governance and user entrepreneurial intention;(4)there is a chain mediation mechanism in the influence of virtual community governance on user entrepreneurial intention,facilitative governance,constrained governance can influence user entrepreneurial intention through user knowledge sharing,newness of entrepreneurial opportunity in turn;(5)cognitive empathy positively moderates the positive effects of user knowledge sharing on user entrepreneurial intentions and newness of entrepreneurial opportunity on user entrepreneurial intentions.The innovations of this study are mainly reflected in the following three aspects.First,this study deeply explores the types,characteristics and roles of virtual community governance segments,and reveals the effects of facilitative and constrained governance on user entrepreneurial intentions respectively.This helps to make up for the shortage of virtual community governance segmentation studies,deepen the comprehensive understanding of virtual community governance,and provide theoretical references for deeper and more detailed virtual community governance studies in the future.Second,this study integrates individual and contextual factors to construct a model of the relationship between virtual community governance and user entrepreneurial intentions,revealing the mechanisms of user entrepreneurial intentions from a holistic and systematic perspective,and providing theoretical references for a deeper understanding of studies related to user entrepreneurship.Third,this study extends cognitive empathy to the field of user entrepreneurship research and explores the moderating role of cognitive empathy in the relationship between virtual community governance and user entrepreneurial intentions.This not only provides greater explanatory power to the theoretical model and deepens the study of the boundary conditions of the mechanisms generating user entrepreneurial intentions,but also organically integrates research on the two topics in the fields of psychology and entrepreneurship,providing a useful complement to the research in the field of user entrepreneurship and advancing the further development of the field.