An Embeddedness Perspective: Interlock Director Network Structure And Strategic Entrepreneurial Activities

With the globalization of the knowledge economy,science and technology are rapidly updated,consumer demands are becoming more complex.Especially in the context of China's transitional economy,whether the enterprises are locked by the current competitive advantage,losing future value opportunities;or lost in exploring new opportunities and finding it difficult to commercialize them,both fail to deliver superior long-term performance.Strategic entrepreneurship is a fusion theory of strategic management and entrepreneurial theory.Emphasizing both advantage-seeking and opportunity-seeking,simultaneously implementing exploration activities and exploitation activities,maintaining the balance between the two,it is the key choice for enterprises to achieve sustainable development.However,The dual activities of strategic entrepreneurship requires resources and information support,which cannot be achieved by relying on the company's own conditions.As an important inter-enterprise network,the interlock director network is a key channel for enterprise resource acquisition.Based on the theory of resource dependence,social network theory and strategic entrepreneurial process model,it is believed that the structural characteristics of enterprise embedded in the interlock director network determine the ability of enterprises to acquire resources in the network.From the logic of resource-driven strategic behavior,this paper discuss the relationship between interlock director network structure and strategic entrepreneurship activities form network embeddedness perspective.At the same time,it also focuses on the moderating effect of absorptive capacity to explain the synergistic mechanism of external resource acquisition and internal absorption capacity.The pharmaceutical manufacturing industry listed in the A-share market of China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets was selected as a research sample.The data of 483 sample enterprise in 2015-2017 were collected,construct regression model and conduct empirical analysis.It examines the influence of interlock network centrality and structural holes(structural embeddedness indexes)on exploration strategic entrepreneurship activities.exploitation strategic entrepreneurship activities and ambidexterity balance of strategic entrepreneurship activities.The moderating effect of absorptive capacity is also tested.Empirical results indicate that: in interlock networks built by the whole listed company,network centrality and network structure holes are significantly positive to exploration activities,exploitation activities and ambidexterity balance of strategic entrepreneurship activities;Absorptive capacity have positive role for moderating the influence of network centrality and network structure holes on exploration activities,exploitation activities and ambidexterity balance of strategic entrepreneurship activities.In the network constructed by the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry,network centrality still has a positive effect on exploration activities and ambidexterity balance of strategic entrepreneurship activities;the positive moderating effect of the absorption capacity is also significant;However,the relationship between the network centrality and the exploitation activities is not significant.The influence of network structure holes on ambidexterity strategic entrepreneurship activities and the balance between the two is no longer significant.According to the empirical results,this paper believes that being in the center of the interlock network is conducive to the successful implementation of strategic entrepreneurial behavior.However,if enterprises want to gain resource advantages and support strategic entrepreneurship by occupying the network structure hole of interlock network,it is necessary to put the chain target in the whole market,to ensure the real existence of resource breadth and resource control advantages of the structural hole.In addition,externally acquired resources require internal rational identification,understanding and integration with existing resources to support strategic entrepreneurial behavior more effectively.