Personal Network Capability, Network Structure Characteristics And The Study On The Relationship Between The Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Entrepreneurship has attracted more and more scholars’attention due to its great contribution to economic development, innovation and job creation. As the largest transition economy in the world, China has experienced the emergence and prosperity of entrepreneurial activities in the past two decades. However, owing to the historical, institutional and cultural factors, many entrepreneurs in China still face considerable barriers, such as a volatile institutional environment, limited access to critical resources or a lack of government support. To explore why some Chinese entrepreneurs overcome these obstacles, successfully launch their own business and achieve a significant growth while others not is of great importance. And because of the liability of newness, social transactions through entrepreneurs’guanxi networks play a critical role in the acquisition of venture resources. Therefore, the dissertation focuses on how entrepreneurs’guanxi-based network capabilities, network position and tie strength impact on entrepreneurial opportunity discovery and exploitation in the specific context of China, as for transitional economies, an open issue. After a careful review of the literature, firstly, the dissertation puts forward the construct of guanxi-based network capabilities, and its direct influence on entrepreneurial opportunity discovery and exploitation. Secondly, the review of the literature reveals that the relationships between guanxi-based network capabilities and network position are Chinese particularistic, and little theoretical or empirical work has addressed this issue, thus, the dissertation explore how entrepreneurs’network positions interact with network capabilities and in turn have impact on entrepreneurial activities. In addition, prior research tends to investigate the linkages of tie strength and entrepreneurial opportunities in isolation, focusing exclusively on either weak ties or strong ties, thus, there is a need to combine both strong and weak ties to explore their effect on opportunity discovery and exploitation.And to examine the hypotheses developed based on the theoretical framework, the questionnaire survey of quasi-snow-balling approach were used for data collection. Totally417questionnaires were sent out while204surveys were usable, with ratio of valid questionnaire of48.9%. According to the data analysis, some relevant methods, such as explorative factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regression models, were used to examine the hypotheses deriving from the conceptual model. Based on the detailed data analyzing and discussion, the findings are showed as follows:Firstly, the dissertation combines guanxi skills and behaviors with relational competence perspective to explore individual’s guanxi-based network capabilities, which compose guanxi orientation, guanxi establishment and guanxi management, and how network capabilities can construct various ties in the information search and resource acquisition process for opportunity discovery and exploitation.Secondly, the dissertation shows that the substitute interaction between guanxi-based network capabilities and network position significantly affects entrepreneurs’opportunity discovery. However, during the process of opportunity exploitation, network position couldn’t substitute for the effect of guanxi-based network capabilities.Thirdly, the dissertation reveals that weak tie is an important mediator between the interaction of guanxi-based network capabilities and network position, and opportunity discovery. And both strong and weak ties as a mediator of network capabilities or network position, positively relate to opportunity exploitation.Lastly, the dissertation also presents discussions and implications of the findings, and we provide limitations and suggestions for the future research. In general, the current research not only promotes the in-depth development of research on entrepreneurial opportunities, but also improves the generalizability of network capabilities theory in individual level.