| Chinese firms are facing a new round of technological revolution and major challenges of economic restructuring.A series of digital technologies,such as cloud computing,big data and artificial intelligence,have developed rapidly and penetrated into all areas of the economy and society,giving birth to the continuous development of the digital economy and becoming a strong driving force for innovation.In 2022,the scale of China’s digital economy reached 50.2 trillion yuan,accounting for 41.5%of GDP,which is equivalent to the proportion of the entire secondary industry in the national economy(the proportion of China’s secondary industry in GDP in 2022 was 39.9%).The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly put forward the Innovation-Driven Development strategy for the first time.The 19th Congress further stressed the need to firmly implement the Innovation-Driven Development strategy,achieve the rapid development of digital firms,and transform innovative ideas into real entrepreneurial activities.Digital technology supports,organizations have no boundaries,and data-related knowledge as the core resource,which are the three key factors of digital firms and different from traditional firms.The Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship of digital firms is the result of the interaction between firms and related entities,and the knowledge innovation triggered by technological innovation.As the core of entrepreneurship,how such entrepreneurial opportunities can be realized through multi-agent interaction under the power of digital economy and digital technology has become a crucial research topic.Although the existing research has carried out a preliminary exploration on the opportunity realization of digital firms,there are still three limitations: Firstly,multi-agent interaction as a typical feature of Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship,schloars has not given a clear answer about the mechanism through how multi-agent interaction promotes the realization of entrepreneurial opportunities.The existing researches on the opportunity realization of digital firms mainly focus on the influence of single agent at the organizational level.Although attention has been initially put forward to the multi-agent interaction,the specific mechanism of the opportunity realization of digital firms is still unclear.Secondly,the mechanism of multi-agent interaction and the mutual shaping between situations has not been clearly explained in the existing interactive relationship between agents and structures.Digital technology leads to the increase of uncertainty in the context,which makes digital firms facing many obstacles to development.The existing research has answered the mutual shaping relationship between single agent and entrepreneurship policy,but how multi-agent interaction and entrepreneurship policy interact and jointly realize opportunities is still unclear.Thirdly,the opportunity realization of digital firms is highly complex,and the factors are diverse and complex.However,the existing research has not explained how the complex linkage between these factors can be configured to affect the opportunity realization of digital firms.Based on this,this research starts with the complexity of Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship,and according to the research paradigm of Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship "Multi-agent Interaction-Structure-Function",taking the complex system thought as the main theory,taking the structural theory and the knowledge-based view as the supplementary theory,and according to the logic from part to whole,carries out the net effect and the synergistic effect research on the mechanism of the mode of multi-agent interaction to the opportunity realization of digital firms.It mainly aims to answer three research questions: "whether,why and how multi-agent interaction triggers the opportunity realization for digital firms","how do multi-agent interaction and structure shape each other" and "how digital firms can better realize opportunities".In order to solve the above-mentioned research problems,this research first carries out case analysis on two digital firms,and initially explores the mechanism of the mode of multi-agent interaction on the opportunity realization of digital firms.By coding the case data,the core constructs related are identified: the mode of multi-agent interaction,knowledge coupling and entrepreneurship policy.Propositions are proposed based on the relationship between constructs,and then a theoretical model is constructed.Secondly,the mode of multi-agent interaction is regarded as a single independent factor to explore the mechanism of its net effect on the opportunity realization of digital firms.The relationship between the variables in the model is deduced theoretically to form the research hypotheses,and the research is tested by using panel data of the top 100 firms in the digital economy from 2013 to 2022.The empirical analysis of second-hand data shows that out of the 14 hypotheses proposed in the net effect research,10 are supported by the data and 4 fail the empirical test.In general,the conclusion shows that the the mode of multi-agent interaction has a dual mechanism for the opportunity realization of digital firms,which is continuous and multi-stage.It not only triggers the opportunity realization of digital firms through knowledge coupling,but also further plays a moderator role in the process of knowledge coupling promoting the opportunity realization of digital firms.At the same time,entrepreneurship policy has a triple moderator role in this mechanism.Further,from the perspective of synergy,the research optimizes the theoretical model by using fs QCA method.It is found that high level opportunity realization of digital firms can be realized through ecological,leader-oriented and enterprising configuration path,while closed configuration will lead to non-high level opportunity realization of digital firms,which more fully reveals the mechanism of the mode of multi-agent interaction on the opportunity realization of digital firms.Based on the relevant conclusions,this research has formed three theoretical contributions: Firstly,explore the dual mechanism of the mode of multi-agent interaction,which takes knowledge coupling as the mediator to influence the opportunity realization,enrich the relevant research on multi-agent interaction and contribute to the preliminary test of Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship research paradigm.Secondly,explore the relationship between behavior and structure in structural theory from the perspective of multi-agent interaction,and contribute to expanding the application boundary of structural theory.Thirdly,explore the different paths of opportunity realization of digital firms from the perspective of configuration,explore the asymmetric causal relationship between the opportunity realization of digital firms and its driving factors,and contribute to revealing the complexity of the opportunity realization.The practical significance of this research mainly includes the following three points: Firstly,for digital firms,the use of different modes of multi-agent interaction to carry out knowledge coupling are helpful for digital firms to realize opportunities.Secondly,it is suggested that due to the difference of the mode of multi-agent interaction and the type of knowledge coupling,the entrepreneurship policy will bring positive or negative impact to the firms.The firm can adjust the interaction strategy in time to deal with the high uncertainty context.Thirdly,if digital firms want to realize opportunities better,they need to consider the important role of the mode of multi-agent interaction and its adaptation to structural elements such as knowledge coupling and entrepreneurship policy from the strategy of firms. |
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