Environmental uncertainty, entrepreneurial governance, and entrepreneurship activities: evidence from China, 2005 - 2019

Zhang, Weiliang

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115883 Copy

Description

Title

Environmental uncertainty, entrepreneurial governance, and entrepreneurship activities: evidence from China, 2005 - 2019

Author(s)

Zhang, Weiliang

Issue Date

2022-07-07

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Mahoney, Joseph
• Sakhartov, Arkadiy

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

• Mahoney, Joseph
• Sakhartov, Arkadiy

Committee Member(s)

• Schijven, Mario
• Yao, Kun

Department of Study

Business Administration

Discipline

Business Administration

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Entrepreneurship
• Uncertainty
• China
• Entrepreneurial Governance

Abstract

Uncertainty has been a key concept in entrepreneurship literature. However, the relationship between uncertainty and entrepreneurship activities has been inclusive. In this dissertation, I attempt to contribute to this long-puzzling relationship by joining theories from management and economics literature to develop an integrative theoretical framework on the relationships between environmental uncertainty, entrepreneurial governance, entrepreneurial outcomes, and entrepreneurial strategic changes. I propose that environmental uncertainty can significantly affect entrepreneurial outcomes and entrepreneurial strategic changes, and entrepreneurial governance plays an important role in this process. To reconcile previous conflicting literature on uncertainty and entrepreneurship activities, I identify three different types of environmental uncertainty – macroeconomic uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty, and political turnover uncertainty. I develop an integrative framework to explain and predict how different types of environmental uncertainty can have distinct impacts on entrepreneurial outcomes and entrepreneurial strategic changes. Importantly, I propose that startups with distinctive ownership structures can leverage or mitigate the impacts of environmental uncertainty differently, underpinning the importance of ownership arrangements for startups. To test my theoretical framework, I collected a unique dataset covering 9 million Chinese startups registered after 2005. Moreover, I develop a novel measurement for economic policy uncertainty with an analysis of a proprietary dataset of more than 240, 000 Chinese policies. The empirical results indicate that both macroeconomic uncertainty and economic policy uncertainty can significantly decrease the likelihood of survival of startups, while political turnover uncertainty can significantly increase the likelihood of entrepreneurial survival. Moreover, I investigate the relationship between environmental uncertainty and two critical types of industry-related entrepreneurial strategic change – diversifying entry and change of the dominant business. I found that macroeconomic uncertainty and economic policy uncertainty will positively impact the likelihood of diversifying entries by startups but negatively impact the likelihood of changes of the dominant business by startups. Political turnover uncertainty, in contrast, can induce both types of industry-related entrepreneurial strategic change. Finally, three characteristics of ownership structures – number of shareholders, the existence of institutional shareholders, and the existence of supermajority shareholder – are investigated as moderators of the above relationships.

Graduation Semester

2022-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Weiliang Zhang

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