The Impact Of Entrepreneurs’ Prior Experience, Learning Patterns On Entrepreneurial Competence

The dynamic entrepreneurial activity, high entrepreneurial ventureclose rate and low entrepreneurial competence have become the the currentsituations of entrepreneurship in China. Entrepreneurial competence hasbecome one of the most important factors that affect the entrepreneurialsuccess. How to improve the entrepreneurial competence has becoming theentrepreneurship practice problems that need to be solved urgently. Inentrepreneurship practice, improving the entrepreneurial competencethrough the accumulation of all sorts of working experience andentrepreneurial experience is the mainstream view of the public. It alsoplays important role in guiding the entrepreneurship practice.Inentrepreneurship research field, the scholars regard the experience learningas the key to the entrepreneurial learning. Entrepreneurs change theentrepreneurial knowledge, competence, performance through learningfrom prior experience. Prior experience influences the entrepreneurialknowledge, competence and performance. However, there are some scholars also hold the view that entrepreneurial learning research is still inits early stage, and lack of related empirical research especially. Currentstudies pay so much attention to the effects that prior experience affects theentrepreneurial performance, while entrepreneurial competence as one ofthe factors which impacted more directly by the prior experience, far fromobtaining enough consideration. In addition, academic circles lack of therelated research about in what way prior experience affect theentrepreneurial competence, and what factors influence the relationshipbetween them. Therefore, this study take the entrepreneurs with the priorworking experience or prior entrepreneurial experience as the respondents,take the early-stage of new enterprise as the research scene, study theeffects that prior experience influences the entrepreneurial competence, andtest the moderator effect of the learning patterns finally.The research mainly adopts the literature study method andquestionnaire method, and completes the following several aspects jobs.Firstly, puts forward prior experience containing six dimensions, namelythe diversity of entrepreneurial experience, diversity of industry experience, diversity of function experience, relevance of entrepreneurial experience,relevance of industry experience and relevance of functionexperience.Learning patterns containing two dimensions, namelyexplorative learning and exploitative learning. Entrepreneurial competencecontaining two dimensions, namely opportunities related competence andmanagement related competence. Secondly, propose the theory model andresearch hypotheses based on the existing researches. Thirdly, design thequestionnaire based on the existing scale and revise the accomplishedquestionnaire based on experts and entrepreneurs’ advises, and the resultsof the preliminary investigation. Forthly, conduct questionnaire survey on alarge scale, and collect375valid questionnaires. After that, test the effectsthat control variables impact learning patterns and entrepreneurialcompetence through the Independent-Sample T Test and One-wayANOVA. Test the effects that all dimensions of prior experience influencesthe entrepreneurial competence and the moderator effect of the learningpatterns through Correlation Analysis and Regression Analysis. Finally,draw the conclusions as follows: Firstly, control variables such as the age, the education level andentrepreneurial industry have impact on entrepreneurial competence.Compared with the younger entrepreneurs, the older entrepreneurs havestronger entrepreneurial competence. Compared with the lower educationlevel entrepreneurs, the higher education level entrepreneurs have strongerentrepreneurial competence. Compared with the non business serviceindustry entrepreneurs, the business service industry entrepreneurs havestronger entrepreneurial competence.Secondly, prior experience has positive influence on entrepreneurialcompetence.All dimensions of prior experience have positive influence onthe opportunities related competence. Relevance of entrepreneurialexperience, relevance of industry experience and relevance of functionexperience have positive influence on the management related competence.Thirdly, the learning patterns moderator the relationship between priorexperience and entrepreneurial competence. Explorative learningmoderator the relationship between diversity of entrepreneurial experienceand opportunities related competence. Explorative learning moderator the relationship between diversity of industry experience and opportunitiesrelated competence.Explorative learning moderator the relationshipbetween diversityof industry experience and management relatedcompetence. Explorative learning moderator the relationship betweendiversity of function experience and management related competence.Exploitive learning moderator the relationship between relevance ofindustry experience and opportunities related competence. Exploitativelearning moderator the relationship between relevance of functionexperience and opportunities related competence. Exploitative learningmoderator the relationship between relevance of entrepreneurial experienceand management related competence. Exploitative learning moderator therelationship between relevance of industry experience and managementrelated competence. Exploitative learning moderator the relationshipbetween relevance of function experience and management relatedcompetence.On the basis of the research conclusion above, the study put forwardsome suggestions for the entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs, government, colleges and other related institutions as follows: firstly,habitual entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs should make sure thelearning patterns of themselves, pay attention to reserve high qualitydiversified experience, entrepreneurial related experience, and match theexperience with the learning patterns simultaneously. For the high levelexplorative learning entrepreneurs, it is crucial to accumulate manydifferent types of entrepreneurial experience, industry experience andfunction experience prior to the entrepreneurship. For the high levelexploitative learning entrepreneurs, it is vital to accumulate more relevantentrepreneurial experience, industry experience and function experienceprior to the entrepreneurship. Secondly, the government and relatedentrepreneurial management agencies should advocate rationalentrepreneurship, publicize the importance to reserve experience, andprovide policy support at the same time. Finally, universities and businesstraining institutions should pay attention to develop more training andeducation courses combining with the entrepreneurship practice closely.What’s more, they should pay attention to the follow-up effect of the training and education courses, and turn the education results into theactual entrepreneurial competence enhancing.