Abstract
Recently, the private aesthetic plastic surgery industry in China is developing rapidly and has become the fourth largest service industry of the country which contributes to 1.2% portion of the national GDP and helps to improve employment. Thus, the sustainable development of the industry plays an important role in the sustainability of the Chinese economy which is a problem that cannot be ignored. From the perspective of organizational imprinting, this paper selects seven newly established private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in central China as research samples and applies semi-structured interview and content analysis to investigate the relationship between personal characteristics of entrepreneurs and survival trajectories of these hospitals. Results show that entrepreneurs’ imprint takes effect in the course of establishing a new hospital through entrepreneurial motivation and initial strategy. Specifically, entrepreneurs’ age, educational background, geographical identity and industry experience all contribute to the entrepreneurial success. In addition, entrepreneurs’ imprint may be effective in the initial and early stage and then fades away with environmental changes. Corporate strategy is a useful complement to entrepreneurs’ imprint afterwards.
Highlights
In recent years, China has experienced an unprecedented period of rapid development, and with people’s living standards greatly improved, aesthetic plastic surgery, has become the fourth largest service industry after real estate, car sales and tourism of the country
With the continuous improvement of national institutional system and market supervision, the industry experience and professional background of entrepreneurs are gradually reflected and brought into play, affecting the brand influence of hospitals and the recognition of consumers. Some scholars, such as Zhu and Cao (2017), have verified that entrepreneurs’ industry experience has a positive correlation with the sustainable development of enterprises from the perspective of organizational imprinting, Liang et al (2017) have taken Taobao village in Jieyang, Guangdong province of China, as an example and found that the initial imprinting at different stages will affect the different growth paths of enterprises
Our study reveals the relationship between the individual characteristics of entrepreneurs and the survival and development of hospitals by investigating the founding and development process of private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in a city of Hubei Province for a period of time
Summary
China has experienced an unprecedented period of rapid development, and with people’s living standards greatly improved, aesthetic plastic surgery, has become the fourth largest service industry after real estate, car sales and tourism of the country. Zhu and Cao (2017) studied the P2P financial industry of China and discovered that industry experience of entrepreneurs has a positive imprint on the sustainable development of the industry These inquiries have helped us understand the impact of entrepreneurs’ personal characteristics on new ventures or new industry, we still know little about how these characteristics imprint on the latter, which needs a specific mechanism to explain. Our research intends to explore the impact of entrepreneurs’ characteristics on the survival and development of nascent and private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China from the perspective of organizational imprinting, so as to reveal the sustainable development path of the industry. We conclude this article by summarizing our findings and contributions and discussing future research
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