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1773How to optimize the urban business environment and promote the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises is an important practical and theoretical problem to be solved.Using the methods of problem orientation, literature induction, and phenomenon summary, this paper selects six major urban business environment elements, namely, soft environment, infrastructure, social services, market capacity, business cost, and ecological environment, as the conditional variables, and constructs the theoretical model that the urban business environment affects the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises based on the institutional theory and the configuration perspective. Using the fsQCA method, this paper takes 23 urban case samples with unicorns and 29 urban case samples with potential unicorns in China as the research objects, and comprehensively analyzes the complex causal relationship between the urban business environment and the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises.
The findings are as follows: First, a single business environment element does not constitute a necessary condition for generating high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises. However, infrastructure is the core condition in all configurations, and improving infrastructure has a universal role in the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises. Second, there are five configuration ways of urban business environment leading to a high number of unicorns, and two ways to a high number of potential unicorns, of which the market-resource-driven type is the general path. Third, there are three configuration ways of urban business environment leading to a non-high number of unicorns or potential unicorns, of which the market-innovation restriction type is the general path.
This paper makes the following contributions: First, using outputs other than unicorns to measure high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises, it reveals the multiple paths of “unicorns and potential unicorns emerging in China”, enriching the theoretical research on the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises. Second, based on the institutional theory, it deeply interprets the impact of urban business environment elements on the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises, refining the existing research results of business environment. Third, it reveals the multiple configuration paths that the urban business environment promotes and restricts the emergence of different high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises, which confirms the synergy between business environment elements, providing theoretical guidance and practical reference for other cities and emerging economies to create a business environment conducive to the emergence of high-growth entrepreneurial enterprises.
