The Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Networks And New Venture Growth

In an increasingly dynamic and complex environment, companies are increasingly difficult to maintain competitive advantages. Researches also showed that companies which rely solely on the resources provided by entrepreneurial network have been unable to meet the new venture growth and maintain competitive advantages. With the gradual deepening of entrepreneurship research, dynamic capabilities are introduced to the research of entrepreneurship field. Although mature companies’ dynamic capabilities have become an important branch and hot research in strategic management research, new ventures’ dynamic capabilities research is just beginning.This paper which chose 182 new ventures (creation time of 8 years) for the study was based on social network theory and dynamic capabilities theory. It explored the impact of entrepreneurial networks and dynamic capabilities for new venture growth, and examined the mediating role of dynamic capabilities between entrepreneurial networks and new venture growth.The results show that: First, entrepreneurial networks’two structural characteristics: network size and network strength have significant positive impact on new venture growth. Second, dynamic capabilities’three dimensions:environmental awareness, resource integration and learning ability have significant positive impact on new venture growth. Three, network size has positive impact which is not significant on environmental awareness and resource integration; but it is significant positively impact on the learning ability. Network strength has significant positive impact on environmental awareness, resource integration and learning ability. Four, dynamic capabilities completely mediate the relationship between network size, network strength and new venture growth.A number of contributions flow from this research. First, according to the characteristics of new venture, we defined the connotation of new venture’s dynamic capabilities on the basis of related theories and literature review and built a conceptual model of entrepreneurial networks, dynamic capabilities and new venture growth, which enrich the relevant theoretical research. Second, we introduced dynamic capabilities as a mediating variable between entrepreneurial networks and new venture growth and explored the mediating role of dynamic entrepreneurial, which revealed the important role of entrepreneurial networks and dynamic capabilities in new venture’s growth process.According to empirical findings and the actual development of new venture, we discussed and analyzed the research conclusions. And this paper puts forward some relevant suggestions considering entrepreneurial networks’construction and dynamic abilities’building and maintain in order to have some significance to new venture’s management practices.