The Way toward Sustainability: Policy Attention Evolution of Chinese Local Governments to Promote Entrepreneurship of Returnees Based on Grounded Theory and Social Network Analysis

Xingyu Qi and Songyan Han ()
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Xingyu Qi: School of Public Administration, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu 610041, China
Songyan Han: School of Public Administration, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu 610041, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 20, 1-25

Abstract: As an important livelihood strategy choice to promote the sustainable development of themselves and regions, returnees’ entrepreneurship has played a vital role in the governance of all-level Chinese local governments since the 21st century. The policy attention reflects the importance that the local governments attach to this issue, and the evolution process also reflects relevant policies’ internal rules and characteristics. Based on this, this paper, taking 242 policy texts related to returnees’ entrepreneurship issued by local governments from 2000 to 2021 as the research objects, uses grounded theory and social network analysis in order to explore the policy attention evolution from the aspects of time, space, specific policy domains and cooperative relationship among policy subjects. Finally, this research finds the main conclusions as follows: (1) The policy attention evolution on time dimension has the characteristic of synchronism, different levels and “reciprocal U”. (2) The policy attention evolution on space dimension is closely linked to “pull” and “push” forces of local population flow and has neighborhood effects. (3) The policy attention evolution on specific policy areas will gradually spread and diversify with the change in local governance environment and stage goals. (4) The evolution trend of collaborative social network among policy objects has the characteristic of “loose-central-loose”.

Keywords: returnees; sustainable entrepreneurship; local governance; policy attention evolution; grounded theory; social network analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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