Abstract: Entrepreneurial conduct can be classified into two distinct categories: opportunity entrepreneurship (which actively establishes a business in order to seek commercial possibilities) and necessity entrepreneurship (which is forced to start a business due to lack of employment options). In comparison to necessity entrepreneurship, growth-oriented opportunity entrepreneurship fosters employment growth and economic development and demonstrates a greater capacity for innovation, which is critical for China to accomplish its strategic aim of innovation-driven development. On the other hand, China′s opportunity entrepreneurship index was only slightly higher than those of India, Egypt and Russia, according to the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report. How to activate opportunity entrepreneurship has emerged as a critical issue that must be resolved promptly in China.Based on the theory of entrepreneurial ecosystem, we used the configuration thinking and fsQCA method to explore how multi-factor entrepreneurial ecosystem influences opportunity entrepreneurship involved 49 economies, whose data is collected from the GEM report (2018). Our findings from this research are shown as follows: (1) any single explanatory attribute of an entrepreneurial ecosystem does not constitute the necessary condition of high opportunity entrepreneurship; However, improving infrastructure plays a more general role in producing high opportunity entrepreneurship; (2) there are four recipes—entrepreneurial ecosystem—for high opportunity entrepreneurship, namely, the finance-market-human-infrastructure-society-driven path, the finance-infrastructure-society-driven path, the finance-human-infrastructure-government-driven path, and the market-human- infrastructure-government-driven path; and (3) there are also two recipes for non-high opportunity entrepreneurship, and they are asymmetrically related to those that generate high opportunity entrepreneurship.The research contributions are as follows: (1) based on the entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, this study explored the relationship between entrepreneurial environmental factors and opportunity entrepreneurship more comprehensively, and it enriched the research in the field of opportunity entrepreneurship. Existing studies focused on the separate effects of financial capital, government policies, or social norms on opportunity entrepreneurship, and rarely discussed the impact of infrastructure on opportunity entrepreneurship; (2) this study used the QCA method to discover the interaction between the various factors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem that drives the process of opportunity entrepreneurship and expanded the literature on entrepreneurial ecosystem theory. According to the entrepreneurial event theory, the entrepreneurial ecosystem influences entrepreneurial behavior by affecting the perception of desirability and feasibility. The conclusion of this paper verified the complementarity of the above mechanisms and found that only the coexistence of resource feasibility perception and capability feasibility perception can promote the feasibility perception of opportunity entrepreneurship. For example, the four recipes found in this paper are all under the guarantee of infrastructure, and the elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem that affect the perception of desirability combine with other elements that affect the perception of resources and capability feasibility to synergize to produce high-opportunity entrepreneurship; (3) The conclusions of this study provided a new explanation for the inconsistency in the current literature. For example, there are divergent results in scholars′ research on the relationship between social norms and opportunity entrepreneurship. Our analysis showed that whether social norms promote opportunity entrepreneurship depends on the context of social norms and different factors. Specifically, the finance-market-human-infrastructure-society-driven and finance-infrastructure-society-driven paths suggest that matching social norms and other elements can lead to high-opportunity entrepreneurship. However, the finance-human-infrastructure-government-driven and market-human-infrastructure-government-driven paths suggest that high-opportunity entrepreneurship can be achieved in the absence of social norms.The practical inspirations drawn from this research are as follows: (1) the research has strengthened infrastructure construction. Sound infrastructure plays a more general role in promoting opportunity entrepreneurship, which suggests that when formulating policies to promote opportunity entrepreneurship, it is necessary to give full play to the key role of infrastructure. A sound and developed urban infrastructure should be strived to be established to facilitate the flow of business information, and boost the perception of entrepreneurial potential by building high-speed internet networks, strengthening urban road network systems, expanding public rail transit and by means of other measures. (2) Excellent international cases should be learned. This paper found four types of entrepreneurial ecosystems that generate high-opportunity entrepreneurship. For example, for countries or regions with a poor market environment, human capital and government support, opportunity entrepreneurship can be enhanced by creating social norms that support entrepreneurship, improving infrastructure, and optimizing financial capital. Infrastructure combined with the power of financial capital, human capital and government policies should be used to stimulate opportunity entrepreneurship in countries or regions where social norms do not encourage it.

Key words: entrepreneurial ecosystem, opportunity entrepreneurship, fsQCA