Empirical research on private entrepreneur human capital in China and enterprises' growth performance

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to locate those entrepreneur human capital elements which significantly influence an enterprise's growth performance, within both high‐tech and traditional enterprises, thereby helping entrepreneurs understand that human capital elements will provide different impacts within different industries.Design/methodology/approachUnder some necessary research assumptions, the statistical analysis described in this paper uses data collected from a questionnaire survey and is performed under the SPSS16.0 Program.FindingsAn enterprise growth model is built from the perspectives of entrepreneur human capital. Analysis shows that human capital elements of the same entrepreneur have different impacts on the performance of business growth in different industries. The theoretical model provides a better explanation of the high‐tech enterprises' growth performance. Innovation and business growth performances from a high‐tech enterprise have greater reliance on human capital of entrepreneurs than the traditional industries.Originality/valueMost current studies of the human capital of entrepreneurs focus on the analysis of background characteristics, but inadequate attention has been given to the relationship between human capital and the enterprises' growth performance, as well as to the comparative analysis of entrepreneurs' human capital in high‐tech enterprises and traditional enterprises. This paper, however, compares and analyzes such relationships between high‐tech enterprises and traditional enterprises.