Three Essays on Entrepreneurship in China

This thesis delves into the realm of entrepreneurship, especially entrepreneurial decision-making, entrepreneurial performance, and innovation in China, a country that is experiencing vibrant entrepreneurial growth. Since the advent of its market transition in the late 1980s, China has witnessed a surge in vigorous private enterprise development. Recent years have seen a dedicated commitment from the Chinese government to nurture entrepreneurship and drive innovation. Notably, China embarked on extensive programs in 2004, specifically aimed at propelling entrepreneurship and innovation. Subsequent efforts in 2018 sought to bolster these initiatives, broadening their scope and intensifying support for start-ups. Consequently, China presents an intriguing and critical landscape for exploring pertinent research on entrepreneurship. The thesis is comprised by three essays that focus on entrepreneurial decision-making, entrepreneurial performance, and entrepreneurial innovation in the Chinese context. The first paper, also the job market paper “Better shelter, worse entrepreneurial performance: Evidence from China’s One-Child Policy” revolves around probing into how entrepreneurs’ family resources impact their entrepreneurial performance. On the one hand, family resources help to improve entrepreneurs’ development chances; on the other hand, easy access to family resources may weaken their entrepreneurial capabilities and spirits. The paper navigates the theoretical tension between the “pro-family resources” and “anti-family resources” perspectives, leveraging China’s one-child policy as an extreme scenario to unearth evidence that either supports or challenges these viewpoints. In the second paper “The absorption of a scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making: Evidence from a field experiment in China”, I delve into the treatment effects arising from a scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making, which characterized by clear formulation of problems, the development of theories about the implications of entrepreneurial actions, tests of these theories through systematic evidence, and rigorous evaluation of test results. This paper aims to uncover this paper aims to investigate whether these heterogeneous treatment effects are caused by the differences in individuals’ ability to absorb the scientific approach and how the absorption of the scientific approach affects entrepreneurial performance. Building upon the first paper, the third paper“Stand by or come inside: The effect of entrepreneurs’ access to family resources and family involvement on innovation in start-ups” investigates how entrepreneurs’ access to family resources impacts innovation investment in start-ups. This paper highlights the disparity between the availability of family resources and actual involvement of family when evaluating innovation investment in start-ups. In summary, this thesis aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of entrepreneurial decision-making, entrepreneurial performance, and innovation in the Chinese context.