Abstract
Entrepreneurial followers are defined as the crucial members of a specific entrepreneurial team and do not include the leader or normal employees in the present paper. This population can be viewed as indispensable factors in the success of entrepreneurship, especially in the start-up stage. In addition, according to the following time, they can be divided into two groups, namely long-term entrepreneurial followers and short-term entrepreneurial followers. However, studies focusing on entrepreneurship cultivation for entrepreneurial followers are relatively few. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the needs of Chinese entrepreneurial followers in entrepreneurship cultivation from the early stage of entrepreneurship. In this paper, a sample of 200 long-term entrepreneurial followers from Tianfu New Area in China was investigated. To enable the researchers to explore the unique opinions of entrepreneurial followers, a mixed data collection approach that combined interviews and questionnaires was chosen in this study. The results revealed following findings: (a) high levels of social capital, good entrepreneurial opportunities and projects, and highly cooperative teams were viewed as the most important factors for entrepreneurship by entrepreneurial followers in China; (b) most entrepreneurial followers believed that the primary difficulty in the cultivation process was the inefficiency in talent training mechanism; and (c) nearly 40% of samples suggested that the cultivation and enhancement of local talents should be firstly carried out by the Chinese government, indicating a gap between the supporting force for local and returned talents in China. In addition, various types of incentive policies and good environments for talent growth were also considered as important suggestions by entrepreneurial followers. We found that unlike entrepreneurial leaders, entrepreneurial followers focus more on income expectation, and personal development rather than supporting the development of companies in China. These findings should be viewed as priorities when enhancing current entrepreneurship cultivation in China.
Highlights
Entrepreneurship has attracted the attention of policymakers, economists, and scholars around the world
By regarding 1 of 19 new state-level areas in China that were established upon approval of the State Council—namely, the Tianfu New Area, located in Sichuan Province, this investigation focuses on answering the following question: What do entrepreneurial followers really need in entrepreneurship cultivation at the start-up stage? In total, 3 aspects will be considered in relation to this question: (a) The factors that influence entrepreneurial followers in participating in entrepreneurship activities; (b) the difficulties faced by entrepreneurial followers in early stage entrepreneurship; and (c) suggestions for the improvement of the system of entrepreneurship cultivation at the start-up stage
The results show that high levels of social capital, good entrepreneurial opportunities and projects, and highly cooperative teams were viewed as vital foundations of entrepreneurship by samples
Summary
Entrepreneurship has attracted the attention of policymakers, economists, and scholars around the world. Previous studies have confirmed the important role played by entrepreneurs in entrepreneurship (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000) This increased interest has led to a growing body of research that has attempted to identify the factors of entrepreneurs that can be promoted by its cultivation. It is generally accepted by policymakers and scholars that high levels of entrepreneurship can be achieved through cultivation. As far as our knowledge goes, studies regarding the cultivation of entrepreneurs only considered the financial (Elston and Audretsch, 2010; Román et al, 2013) and political (Peng et al, 2014) aspects They could not provide a comprehensive investigation that focused on the real situations of entrepreneurs during start-up stage, the most difficult and momentous period. As Pittaway and Cope (2016) pointed out, the empirical evidence does not often offer conclusive support in this field
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