An empirical study of the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and strategic variety

ZHOU Jian; WANG Qing-Jin; ZHOU Xue

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Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (5) : 70-78.

An empirical study of the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and strategic variety

Zhou Jian, Wang Qingjin, Zhou Xue

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Abstract

With the change of consumer demand, the progress of Internet technology and the acceleration of industrial fluctuation, the complexity of entrepreneurial environment faced by new ventures is increasing, which requires that new ventures can continuously innovate products and services to develop diversified entrepreneurial opportunities and create value. More and more new ventures begin to change their entrepreneurial strategy model, gradually changing from strategic simplicity to strategic diversity. In practice, "Enabling" and "Platform" entrepreneurial business models are increasingly sought after by new ventures, such as the "Iron Man" business model of millet hardware + new retail + Internet, the "Handu Power" brand Incubation Platform of Handu clothing house, Haier′s Creator Laboratory, etc. These entrepreneurial business models have the ability to develop and support multiple entrepreneurial opportunities and take the lead in the competition. It is found that strategic diversity can help entrepreneurs acquire multiple market and competitive information, develop diversified market opportunities and accelerate organizational learning process. Therefore, the key to further study is how to cultivate and realize strategic diversity more effectively in the increasingly dynamic and complex entrepreneurial environment. In other words, in the process of shaping and realizing the diversity of entrepreneurship strategies, what are the key factors driving the impact?
Most of the existing studies on strategic diversity are based on mature enterprises, which consider that the abundance and diversification of knowledge resources of mature enterprises affect the choice of strategic diversity of enterprises. However, compared with mature enterprises, new ventures have special entrepreneurial situations and are faced with the shortage of resources and knowledge reserves, which makes it difficult to diversify their strategies. In fact, when exploring entrepreneurship strategies or logical choices, we need to pay special attention to the cognitive factors of entrepreneurs. In the context of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs need to make decisions based on environmental awareness and personal judgment. As the leader of strategic decision-making, entrepreneurs largely determine the direction and strategic choice of entrepreneurship. The framework of "situational-thinking-behavioral" research of entrepreneurial cognitive further finds that entrepreneurial strategic decision-making is essentially a unique cognitive and thinking process induced by the particularity of entrepreneurial situation. Therefore, it can be predicted that entrepreneurial cognition plays an important role in the process of choosing strategic diversity.
Based on the knowledge-based view, it is believed that obtaining support from heterogeneous external resources can help enterprises accumulate needed knowledge to support the development of strategic diversity. Larraeta and others divide the external knowledge resources that entrepreneurs can acquire into two dimensions: diversity and novelty. They think that these two dimensions can greatly expand the vision of entrepreneurs, make entrepreneurs more exposed to new ideas and opportunities, and guide entrepreneurs to adopt diversified strategic choices. At the same time, under the background of the explosion of information and knowledge resources, knowledge will become an important source of strategic resources and competitive advantages of enterprises. Because of the tacit and non-liquidity of external knowledge, it will not spontaneously internalize into internal competitive advantages of enterprises. Its effectiveness depends on whether it can be correctly identified and absorbed. In addition, in the context of entrepreneurship, whether external knowledge resources are acquired or internalized and absorbed, entrepreneurs′ thinking and cognitive processes are indispensable, but most of the existing research is based on the exploration of enterprises and organizations. This paper synthetically draws lessons from entrepreneurial cognitive theory and knowledge-based theory, considers the overall relationship framework of entrepreneurial cognition, knowledge diversity and entrepreneurial strategy diversity, and explores the impact of entrepreneurial awareness on entrepreneurial strategy diversity from the perspective of entrepreneurs, and explores the intermediary mechanism and impact boundaries.
The research object is the entrepreneurs of new ventures. The research team collects data in various ways: first is to go directly to business incubator and business park, distribute and fill in questionnaires on the spot with the help of staff; second, through "acquaintance relationship", to contact entrepreneurs and ask them to fill in the electronic version of the questionnaire. In this study, about 300 questionnaires were distributed in paper and electronic versions, and 188 valid questionnaires were recovered, with an effective recovery rate of 62.67%. According to the preliminary statistics of the questionnaire data, male entrepreneurs accounted for 65.4% and female entrepreneurs accounted for 34.6%. Young and middle-aged entrepreneurs accounted for 53.7%. Education level distribution, undergraduate degree was 35.6%, graduate degree was 33.5%. In entrepreneurship experience, the vast majority of respondents participated in the establishment of one business (55.5%). 29.5% of the respondents participated in the establishment of two enterprises; in terms of enterprise size, the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises with less than 50 people (64.8%).
The empirical research results show that entrepreneurial cognition helps to improve the level of strategic diversity of new ventures, but the impact of different dimensions on knowledge diversity is different. Specifically, allocation cognitive and willingness cognitive have a significant role in promoting knowledge diversity, but competence cognitive has no significant impact on knowledge diversity. Diversity plays a mediating role, but it has no mediating effect on the relationship between competence cognition and strategic diversity. The higher the absorptive capacity, the stronger the role of knowledge diversity in promoting strategic diversity.
There are three main theoretical contributions in this paper: Firstly, based on social cognitive theory, this paper analyzed the problem of strategic diversity of new ventures with insufficient resources and knowledge reserves under the guidance of entrepreneurs′ cognition, and deepened the related research on strategic diversity of startups. Secondly, this paper finds and confirms that the positive effect of entrepreneurial awareness on strategic diversity of start-ups depends on the intermediary mechanism of knowledge diversity, which enriches and improves the application of knowledge-based view in the context of entrepreneurship. Thirdly, this paper finds that absorptive capacity promotes the relationship between knowledge diversity and strategic diversity. This paper holds that, one hand, absorptive capacity enables entrepreneurs to enhance their control over diversified knowledge, which can better support the implementation of corporate strategy; on the other hand, absorptive capacity can help new ventures avoid "lock-in effect" and enter "capability trap", thus expanding the level of corporate strategic diversity. The conclusion of this paper can be used to evaluate the strategic effect of absorptive capacity in entrepreneurship situation more comprehensively.

Key words

entrepreneurial cognition / knowledge diversity / absorptive capacity / strategic variety

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Zhou Jian, Wang Qingjin, Zhou Xue. An empirical study of the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and strategic variety[J]. Science Research Management. 2021, 42(5): 70-78

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