| Strategic thinking, Networks and Migrant entrepreneurs’ Success |
Received:October 15, 2017 Revised:October 15, 2017 |
Key Words: Strategic thinking, Structural holes, Resources diversity, Chinese migrant entrepreneurs, Lab-in-the-field experiment |
| Author Name | Affiliation | | Na Zou* | Goethe University Frakfurt am Main |
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Abstract: |
| Structural holes theory makes a strong case that entrepreneurial outcomes can be predicted by the positions entrepreneurs occupied in personal networks. Explanations as to why and how emphasize the comparative advantage of a brokering position. This study tests the structural holes hypothesis, which focuses on the structural aspect of social networks, against the resource diversity hypothesis, which focuses on the resources aspect of social networks, on migrant entrepreneurs’ business performance. Moreover, I explore the association between individuals’ capability of strategic thinking – elicited experimentally, and migrant entrepreneurs’ network characteristics (structural holes and resources diversity). Drawing from a sample of 200 migrant entrepreneurs in Shanghai, I find that the resource diversity, especially the number of ties with which migrant entrepreneurs can exchange market information, shows consistent and robust positive correlation with monthly profit. Furthermore, migrant entrepreneurs with a higher level of strategic thinking are more likely to report a higher diversity of resources, more personal ties for exchanging market information and ties for getting political support. However, structural holes are neither correlated with monthly profit nor with the levels of strategic thinking. |
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