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1678User entrepreneurship is emerging as a unique form of entrepreneurship, and more scholars have found that user-founded firms are more likely to achieve improved entrepreneurial performance. However, the reasons behind it have not been deeply revealed. Therefore, this paper analyzes the key factors affecting user entrepreneurial performance improvement at the user entrepreneur level and user community level from a configuration perspective. Using 21 user entrepreneurial enterprises as case samples, this paper applies the fsQCA method to explore the multiple and concurrent impacts of the configuration effect of five conditions at the user’s own level and user community level on user entrepreneurial performance improvement, and reveals the complex mechanism of cause and effect.
The findings are as follows: First, no single factor at the user entrepreneur level and user community level is necessary for high entrepreneurial performance, but the prior experience of user entrepreneurs and the member involvement of user communities play a more universal role. Second, there are three driving paths for high entrepreneurial performance: the education level of user entrepreneurs, the size of user communities, and the diversity of member backgrounds. Third, there are two driving paths for non-high entrepreneurial performance, which are causally asymmetric to the driving paths for high entrepreneurial performance.
Based on the above findings, the following insights are obtained: User entrepreneurs accumulating prior experience is a prerequisite for improving user entrepreneurial performance; user communities need to create an active community atmosphere by motivating community members to actively participate in entrepreneurial activities to promote user entrepreneurial performance improvement; user entrepreneurs need to choose suitable user communities to jointly carry out entrepreneurial activities to improve user entrepreneurial performance, taking into account their actual situation.
The future directions are as follows: Provide theoretical support with universality for user entrepreneurial activities using the large-sample empirical test; sort out the basis for assigning variables that affect user entrepreneurial performance and organize generally agreed criteria; explore the internal mechanism of the interaction between the education level of user entrepreneurs, the size of user communities, and the diversity of member backgrounds to enhance user entrepreneurial performance.
The main contributions are that: First, through the study of user entrepreneurial performance improvement, an exploration of the outcome mechanism of user entrepreneurship is realized, which provides a theoretical reference for understanding the process mechanism of user entrepreneurship. Second, based on a holistic perspective, the influencing factors of user entrepreneurship are integrated, which makes up for the deficiency of previous studies limited to a single perspective. Third, the fsQCA method is introduced to the field of user entrepreneurship for the first time, which enriches the toolbox of research methods in this field.
