Private Entrepreneurship And Cultural Characteristics, Human Resource Research, Strategy And Business Performance Relationship

One of the new research streams developed in entrepreneurship in the past ten years is entrepreneurial culture (EC) which is rarely discussed for Chinese private firms. On the other hand, as is known to all, human resource strategy (HRS) is widely researched. The dissertation attempts to bridge these two different areas on the basis of previous literature, by probing the relationship among EC, HRS as well as entrepreneurial performance (EP).The dissertation starts with the review of the previous literatures and summarizes the concepts and models of EC. After two groups of interviews and a case study, an empirical research is brought forward on the basis of the firsthand data collected from different types of firms in different industries. In the research, the complicated relationship among entrepreneurial orientation (EO), marketing orientation (MO), the six factors of the characteristics of EC and EP is examined. The dimensions and types of EC are also discussed. However, it is important to pay attention to the moderating effects of the characteristics of firms and industries among the relationship of EO, EC and EP, which is examined in HLM (Hierarchical Liner Model).The results show that the positive relationship between MO and EP is strongly supported, but the relationship between EO and EP is only partly supported. Only the factor 'innovation' has high correlation with EP as well as its two key dimensions. The 'investment strategy' and the 'involvement strategy' have high correlation with EP, while the 'inducement strategy' is just on the opposite. As to the relationship between HRS and EC, only 'involvement strategy' correlates with EC significantly, while the 'investment strategy' only links to MO. At last, four types of EC come out according to the cluster analysis. The ANOVA and LSD analysis show that only those firms which have 'Strong EC can achieve high EP.