A Study Of The Entrepreneurial Process Based On The View Of Entrepreneurial Experience

Many scholars have conducted in depth analysis and research from different theoretical and empirical perspectives on each stage of the entrepreneurial process. In practice, entrepreneurial experience, as an important element of human resource, impacts on the stages of the entrepreneurial process extensively and deeply including opportunities identification, resources accumulation, as well as start-up performance. But few studies have specifically focused on entrepreneurial experience based on the view of entrepreneurial process. This paper is structured as follows. In the following section, conception of entrepreneurial experience is explored. This is followed by discussing the impact of entrepreneurial experience on each stage of the entrepreneurial process , several propositions are derived. In the final section, conceptual framework model is then presented; conclusions and suggestion for future research are highlighted.Some scholars have argued entrepreneurs are not a homogeneous entity. Entrepreneurial experience is an important sign to distinguish habitual entrepreneurs from novice entrepreneurs. Novice entrepreneurs can be viewed as individuals with no prior business ownership experience either as a business founder, an inheritor, or a purchaser of an independent business but who currently own a equity stake in an independent business that is either new, purchased, or inherited. Serial entrepreneurs can be viewed as individuals who have sold/closed a business in which they had an ownership stake, and they currently have an ownership stake in a single independent business that is either new, purchased, or inherited. Portfolio entrepreneurs can be viewed as individuals who currently have an ownership stake in two or more independent business that are either new, purchased, or inherited. Both serial and portfolio entrepreneurs are called"habitual entrepreneurs".Entrepreneurship begins from opportunities identification. A good entrepreneurial opportunity plays a very important role on a new venture creation successfully. Therefore, the discovery and development of opportunities are the key issues in the field of entrepreneurial research. A large number of academic studies have built similar conclusion that the opportunity existence is objective, but the opportunity identification depends on entrepreneurs subjective value judgments. The most important variable of human capital was entrepreneurial experience. There was significant positive correlation and significant statistical test between entrepreneurial experience and opportunities. This means that experienced entrepreneurs are more likely to start entrepreneurship when the other variables remain unchanged.Resources are key elements of entrepreneurship process. They are the base of the new ventures creation , growth and expansion. The core task for entrepreneurs is the identification, evaluation and deployment of resources. Resources are composed of human resources, financial resources, organizing resources, network resources and so on. Entrepreneurial experience plays an impact role on these resources.At present, the experience of the entrepreneurs has been regarded as one of the most important indicators of the human resource. Entrepreneurial experience is even viewed as a key resource which affects the surviving and development of new ventures.Such habitual entrepreneurs who owed entrepreneurial experience curves. They're the real"business generators"of the commercial activities.Entrepreneurial experience is not only an important human resources, but also benefical to acquire and accumulate other resources. Successful entrepreneurial experience can make for better reputation for entrepreneurs result in improving the entrepreneurs credit rank and persuasion to the financial resources owners, and expanding a broad social and commercial network and channel of financial resources acquisition. Depending on good reputation, new ventures will more easily get financial resources through formal and informal organizations .Thus, the reputation from successful entrepreneurial experience is beneficial to solve the financial resources gap between entrepreneurs and financial resources owners. However, failure entrepreneurial experience will affect the access to venture capital. White has emphasized that financiers need to appreciate that some entrepreneurs learn from their mistakes and may be highly motivated in subsequent ventures. If financiers solely support entrepreneurs with successful track records, a number of good investment opportunities may be missed.The experience of entrepreneurial team members plays an important role on the aspects of team heterogeneity,inter-complementarities, stability, and efficiency. More, mutual complementarities of skills , knowledges and capabilities among the members of entrepreneurial team can achieve higher work efficiency. Finally, it advantages competition capability, improves possibility of successful operations and reduces the operation risks in unknown environment. Entrepreneurs who have broad social network resources become the first-mover in markets and industries quickly during this period. Through prior ventures creation, entrepreneurs can build several relationships among clients, suppliers, partners, competitor, and officials. Most of these relationships can be inherited by the new venture and is beneficial for entrepreneurs to obtain new products, new markets, new information and other new networks.The definitions and appraisal methods of new venture performance are different in the different academic studies. The measurement of start-up performance need to consider more new ventures growth performance except of the general economic performance because start-ups focus more on identifying and utilizing the valuable opportunities. Both growth and profit performance composed the multidimensional framework of build entrepreneurial performance.There are many reasons to explain why firms founded by experienced entrepreneurs can get a better performance. Firstly, since habitual entrepreneurs are often more familiar with the characteristics of industry than novice entrepreneurs. They are more sensitive to the external environment. Secondly, experienced entrepreneurs could collect more enterprise information from past experience. They may receive more suggestions from consultants or other entrepreneurs. Thirdly, entrepreneurial experience provides a good foundation to deal with that information, identify valuable proposals and finally achieve firm profit. Research has shown that experienced entrepreneurs tend to employ more complex model to make analysis, while those who lack experience usually employ a simple model. Lastly, Because experienced entrepreneurs have accumulated a great deal of entrepreneurial skills and practical experiences, it gives a better guidance to new ventures growth.However, experience is also a "double-edged sword". Habit will give entrepreneurs some negative impact of entrepreneurial experience. It will also be a "bias". It may affect the perception with uncertainty and complexity, over-confidence and so on. Scholor have found that serial and portfolio entrepreneurs search less information. If experienced entrepreneurs can't apperceive changes of external environment, they may commit a serious error.A key founding in the literature on expertise is that performance plateaus unless individuals engage in deliberate practice. This is consistent with the domain of entrepreneurship, where scholars have been unable to found that experienced entrepreneurs perform better than novice entrepreneurs.There will be an positive correlation between entrepreneurial experience and opportunities identification, positive correlation relationship between entrepreneurial experience and the acquirement of financial resources, organizing resources and network resources, an inverse positive correlation relationship between entrepreneurial experience and performance.In our opinion, there remains three issues in the future research:Firstly, an extension of future research can distinguish experience as failure and success. Secondly, more in-depth research needs to be conducted surrounding the entrepreneurial experience and the entrepreneurial process, as result, it can enable policymakers and practitioners make relevant policies to tailor the needs of different types of entrepreneurs. Lastly, longitudinal studies of experience and in- experience entrepreneurs conducted in a variety of industrial, regional, national and cultural settings are warranted to explore the links between an entrepreneur's specific human capital and their subsequent opportunity identification and exploitation behavior, as well as their contributions to wealth creation, productivity, job generation, and local economic development.