A Study On Entrepreneurial Innovation Consciousness And Enterprise Innovation Potential

In a fully competitive world, the survival and development of enterprises mostly depends on their innovation. Many civil enterprises went bankrupt one after another since the outbreak of international financial crisis in 2008; the secret of the enterprises to keep growing in this serious situation is to innovate. Usually, where there is an innovative enterprise there is an outstanding leader. The entrepreneur is the chain of command of an enterprise, is the force at the core of the enterprise. The entrepreneur should play as the advocate of innovation, and have a full realization of the importance of innovation; otherwise, it would be very difficult for an enterprise to innovate or succeed in the innovation. So, it is of great significance for the entrepreneurs to have innovation consciousness. However, what is entrepreneurial innovation consciousness? How to measure it? What is its feature? And what is the correlation between entrepreneurial innovation consciousness and enterprise innovation potential? These questions were discussed in the present paper.This paper was composed of three sections. The first section was empirical study of entrepreneurial innovation consciousness. In this section, we defined entrepreneur and entrepreneurial innovation consciousness, and proposed hypotheses of entrepreneurial innovation consciousness, which was measured from cognition and performance. Then we compiled scale of entrepreneurial innovation consciousness on the base of document analysis, open-ended questionnaire collection, individual interview and mini-symposium etc. The scale was found to have sound validity and reliability by exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis after the investigation had been carried out, and was a reliable measuring tool in the field of organization behavior and managerial psychology. Next, we discussed the findings of the investigation, explored the general status of the entrepreneurial innovation consciousness and the feature of innovation consciousness of entrepreneurs in different classification.The second section was the study of innovation consciousness and potential. The innovation potential was measured by enterprise innovation atmosphere and innovation performance, the performance was measured by subjective and objective points of view. On the base of analysis of enterprise innovation potential, we explored the correlation between entrepreneurial innovation consciousness and enterprise innovation potential by correlation analysis and regression analysis. The enterprise innovation performance measured by subjective view was also discussed in order to explore how the innovation consciousness affects the innovation performance.The third section was case study and aimed to further explore the correlation between entrepreneurial innovation consciousness and enterprise innovation potential. Three entrepreneurs were recruited in the case study; they were interviewed with several questions and asked to answer in the scale.The present paper had several findings as following:(l)The entrepreneurial innovation consciousness scale had sound validity and reliability and can be introduced in the evaluation of entrepreneurial innovation consciousness.(2)The entrepreneurial innovation consciousness could be measured from cognition and performance. The dimensions were innovation value, talent strategy, critical reflection, seek new and advice, risk exposure and implementation.(3)The entrepreneurs had significant higher cognition than performance of innovation consciousness. Among these dimensions, the entrepreneurs had better consciousness of seek new and advice and innovation value; middle level of consciousness of talent strategy and risk exposure; lower level of critical reflection and implementation consciousness.(4)Male entrepreneurs had significant better implementation consciousness than female, but not in other dimensions. Younger and older entrepreneurs had significant better innovation consciousness than other ages. Entrepreneurs with bachelor degree have better innovation consciousness than other degree of education. Chief entrepreneurs had significant better innovation risk exposure consciousness than vice-deputy. The server time did not affect the innovation consciousness. The entrepreneurs in state-owned business had higher scores in cognition of innovation consciousness than other business. The entrepreneurs in private business had significant better risk exposure consciousness than other business. The entrepreneurs in new high-tech enterprises had significant better talent strategy consciousness than other enterprises. The entrepreneurs in very small and very large enterprises had better innovation consciousness than other scales.(5)There was significant positive correlation between entrepreneurial innovation consciousness and enterprise innovation atmosphere. The entrepreneurial innovation consciousness could explain and predict the variation of enterprise innovation atmosphere in a great extend. Entrepreneurial innovation consciousness was significant positive correlated with enterprise innovation performance except individual dimension. The total score of entrepreneurial innovation consciousness could explain and predict the variation of enterprise innovation performance.The present paper was limited to small sample and irregular case selection, so some findings would be lack of reliability. At the same time, the present paper excluded the study of external environment which affect the entrepreneurial innovation consciousness, and the study of how to cultivate their innovation consciousness.