Is a Rural Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Conducive to the Improvement of Entrepreneurial Performance? Evidence from Typical Counties of Rural Entrepreneurship and Innovation in China

Xuhong Zhang, Haiqing Hu (), Cheng Zhou and Erwei Dong
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Xuhong Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710054, China
Haiqing Hu: School of Economics and Management, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710054, China
Cheng Zhou: School of Culture, Tourism, Journalism and Art, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan 030006, China
Erwei Dong: School of Community Resources and Development, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: Rural entrepreneurship is an important means to solve the problem of “rural decline” and is also the focus of the “rural revitalization” strategy. The rural entrepreneurship ecosystem directly affects entrepreneurial performance. Based on the configurational perspective, using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method, taking 85 typical rural innovation and entrepreneurship demonstration counties in China as research samples, this study explores the impact path of the rural entrepreneurship ecosystem composed of multiple factors on entrepreneurial performance and the complex causal mechanisms behind it. The results show that market size, human capital, financial capital, infrastructure (both hardware and software), and government scale cannot individually constitute the necessary conditions for high or non-high rural entrepreneurial performance; there exist two pathways driving high entrepreneurial performance in rural areas: a market-driven financing-and-intelligence integration pathway and a government-supported infrastructure-assisted pathway. Under certain conditions, there is a substitution relationship between rural entrepreneurial market allocation and government intervention; there are two paths driving non-high rural entrepreneurial performance, which are summarized into market–financing suppression and market–government suppression according to the core driving factors. By systematically analyzing the impact of the rural entrepreneurial ecosystem on entrepreneurial performance, and explaining the intrinsic logic and path of high and non-high entrepreneurial performance based on the configurational perspective, this paper provides a decision-making reference for further enhancing the entrepreneurial performance in rural China and realizing rural revitalization.

Keywords: rural entrepreneurship; entrepreneurial ecosystem; entrepreneurial performance; configurational effects; fsQCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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