Research On The Relationship Among Entrepreneurship Environment, Process And Performance Within The Industrial Cluster

Industrial cluster is an organic organization, composed of a variety of entrepreneurial activities as the basic cells of its life. Entrepreneurial activities are the main driving force of clusters'formation and evolution, but on the other hand, industrial clusters, with its unique and inherent competitive advantages, can reduce entrepreneurial costs, stimulate a greater number of entrepreneurial opportunities, gather higher-quality entrepreneurial resources, and promote the deepening of the later entrepreneurs'activities.The theoretical and empirical studies on entrepreneurial activities of industrial clusters have been trying to find out the reasons why entrepreneurial activities seem to be even more successful, and the reasons why entrepreneurial activities occur more in industrial clusters than in non-industry clusters. Despite the non-industrial clusters, entrepreneurial environment on the entrepreneurial process and thus also have an impact on entrepreneurial performance, but significant and persistent of the impact are weaker compared to the industrial cluster, because within the industrial cluster, the dynamics, complexity, and relaxed of entrepreneurial environment are more obvious, features of the system's entrepreneurial mechanism, the high correlation's network and the perfect industrial system and other elements of entrepreneurial environment are more conducive to the survival and growth of new enterprises, which contribute to the capacity increase, the rational use of entrepreneurial opportunities and entrepreneurial resources integration, and thus help to improve the entrepreneurial performance level. A systematic study of entrepreneurial performance and its factors becomes very significant. Therefore, based on the relevant literature and theoretical results, and combined with structure equation model and other empirical research methods, this research holds "environment→process→performance" as its basic paradigm, and integrates the characteristics of entrepreneurial environment, process and performance within the context of the overall framework of the organic industrial clusters to study the entrepreneurial performance in industrial clusters and the relationships between performance and its direct and indirect affecting factors. In theory, this research is helpful for the cross-integration of entrepreneurial theories and the theories of industrial clusters by observing the developments of entrepreneurial theories and the theories of industrial clusters from a angle of dislocation, so as to promote the interactive studies between entrepreneurial theories and the theories of industrial clusters; in this way, the research can provide situational references for the formation and development of the framework of entrepreneurial theories. In practice, the research can help people understand the role of entrepreneurial activities in the formation and development of industrial clusters, and the reasons why the rate of entrepreneurial activities' occurrence in clusters is much higher than that in isolated locations; therefore it can further help analyze the mechanism of entrepreneurial activities in industrial clusters.The research has firstly reviewed the related literature from the following four aspects:domestic and international industrial clusters, entrepreneurial activities within industrial clusters, entrepreneurial performance and its influencing factors and has discussed the issues for further researches, which are the theoretical basis of this research. Secondly, based on relevant theories, the research has defined the meanings of the following three important components, that is, entrepreneurial environment, processes (including entrepreneurial resources, entrepreneurs, and opportunities), and performance within the industrial clusters, and also has divided them into reasonable dimensions. On this basis, a theoretical model has been constructed, which is composed of the following ten latent variables:the complexity, dynamics, and relaxed nature of entrepreneurial environment, the opportunities, resources, and entrepreneurs of entrepreneurial processes, the survival, growth, employees'satisfaction, customers' satisfaction of entrepreneurial business within industrial clusters. Besides, combined with related theories and research findings, a correlation research assumptions on the relationships between the above latent variables has been put forward, and the assumptions is composed of 21 assumptions. Thirdly, following standard procedures, an appraisal scale concerning entrepreneurial environment, processes, and performance within industrial clusters has been designed; the number and the content of the specific items which should be included in various dimensions have been fixed. Based on data from the two samples, with pioneering enterprises from stainless steel industrial clusters and automobile &motorcycle parts industrial clusters in Jiangsu Province as the object of the questionnaire, through exploratory factor analysis of first sample data, those terms which are not effective for identification have been deleted to further confirm the dimensions of the latent variables in the scale; through confirmatory factor analysis of the secondary sample data, the specific items of the scale have been further refined, and then the fit index test and correlation coefficient analysis have been held, as well as the reliability and validity of the scale. Finally, the relatively complex theoretical models of the constructed structure were under a spin-off process; meanwhile, six sub-models and a whole model have been established, concerning entrepreneurial environment, processes, and performance within industrial clusters. Based on structural equation models and other empirical research methods, with the aid of AMOS, SPSS,etc., statistical analysis software, those seven models went through an absolute and relative fit index evaluation process and then the models would be revised appropriately according to the results of the evaluation. Then, the refined models went through a significance test in terms of all the assumptions made above, so that the testing results of the assumptions were obtained. On this basis, the testing results of assumptions were discussed in detail. The enlightenments of those assumptions supported by testing results have been analyzed, while for those assumptions which were not supported by testing results, the underlying reasons have been revealed by analyzing stainless steel industrial clusters and automobile & motorcycle parts industrial clusters.The innovation of this research mainly displays in:studying entrepreneurial performance within the contest of industrial clusters and the relationships between entrepreneurial performance and its affecting factors; combined with semi-structured interviews and other methods, drawing up models concerning entrepreneurial environment, process and performance within the context of industrial clusters under the full consideration of "China's situation" embedded in the industrial clusters; with the factors affecting entrepreneurial performance as the main clue, studying the influences of entrepreneurial environment on entrepreneurial process, as well as its conductive effects on entrepreneurial performance from the perspective of industrial clusters; based on the two sample datas collected from stainless steel industrial clusters and automobile &motorcycle parts industrial clusters in Jiangsu Province, applying the structural equation model to the research of conductive effects between entrepreneurship environment, process, and performance within the context of industrial clusters.