Entrepreneurship is very important to industrial upgrading. The reason why we choose this topic to research is that in 2017, we made an investigation about the industrial development in Suzhou City of Jiangsu Province in China. We talked to local entrepreneurs and found that most of them were very positive and passionate. Especially, when we talked about the future or expectation of their enterprises, they all had confidence and made plans to let their enterprises go further even become the industry leaders in the world. They treated their enterprises like their babies. There was an entrepreneur we had to mention. He was over 70 years old, but he was so enthusiastic. When we had a talk, he often spoke some English words. He told us that he would go abroad to do business for about seven months every year and his dream was to let most families in the word use his products. It was so amazing to us. Because most people in his age were retiring at home and just playing or traveling, but this entrepreneur was still fighting. We were all moved by his motivation and spirit which made us think over for a long time. Therefore, we hold a view that entrepreneurship is vital to economic growth especially industrial upgrading. The reason is that like a chef cooking, entrepreneur plays a role of organizing, operating and optimizing product factors such as labor, capital and technology, et al., which are main factors in the economic growth theory. Although there is much literature about entrepreneurship or industrial upgrading, the literature putting them together especially at the background of China is very sparse. Accordingly, in this paper, we analyze the relationship between entrepreneurship and industrial upgrading based on the Chinese current economic development. We will answer three questions: Firstly, can entrepreneurship stimulate industrial upgrading? Secondly, what are the characteristics of entrepreneurship affecting industrial upgrading if the answer of the first question is yes? At last, how does entrepreneurship influence industrial upgrading? In order to make clear the main characteristics of entrepreneurship affecting industrial upgrading, we issue a hypothesis based on a simply theoretical model, that is, entrepreneurship has a positive effect on industrial upgrading. Then, by utilizing the provincial data in our country from 2000 to 2015 and different kinds of econometric methods, we analyze and test the above hypothesis. Hence, we get some conclusions as follows: Generally speaking, entrepreneurship plays a positive role on industrial upgrading, but it mainly forces in eastern and middle areas in China. Moreover, with the evolution of industrial upgrading, entrepreneurship will play a decreasing role on industrial upgrading. It means that there are some factors which will hinder entrepreneurs to accelerate industrial upgrading. We find that during the process of accelerating industrial upgrading, innovation level, opening extent, government support and human resources cannot work well together with entrepreneurship. The reason may be that in our current economic development, industrial innovation especially the independent innovation is lagging and not all industries are open fully so that local enterprises cannot absorb external technical spillover adequately. Meanwhile, our government mainly supports state-owned enterprises so that most of private enterprises cannot get enough help or support. At last, although our country has carried out the policy of university enrollment expansion since 1999, the quality of human resources is still not high, because " graduation is unemployed”, which means that many students graduated from university cannot find jobs. Hence, these factors will influence entrepreneurship to stimulate industrial upgrading. Based on these conclusions, we propose some countermeasures to make entrepreneurship accelerate industrial upgrading better. Firstly, we should fulfill the spirit of profile issued by our central government recently. Secondly, we should realize that there is spatial heterogeneity in the progress which entrepreneurship stimulates industrial upgrading. At last, we should concrete a governing system which includes strengthening innovation level, deepening opening extent, optimizing government support, promoting human resources and so on. Our research not only enriches the academic literature about the relationship between entrepreneurship and industrial upgrading, but also gives out some countermeasures on how to improve industrial upgrading from the perspective of entrepreneurship.
/ Journals / Foreign Economics & Management
Foreign Economics & Management
LiZengquan, Editor-in-Chief
ZhengChunrong, Vice Executive Editor-in-Chief
YinHuifang HeXiaogang LiuJianguo, Vice Editor-in-Chief
Entrepreneurship and Industrial Upgrading: A Study Based on the Original Motivation of Economic Growth
Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 41, Issue 06, pp. 29 - 42 (2019) DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2019.06.003
Summary
References
Summary
1. Landes D S , Mokyr J , Baumol W J . The Invention of enterprise : entrepreneurship from ancient Mesopotamia to modern times[M]. Princeton University Press, 2012.
2. Huang Xianhai, Zhu Zhujun. China's Choice of Industrial Upgrading Path Against the Backdrop of New Industrial Revolution[J].International Economic Review,2015, (1): 112-120.
3. Li Hongbin et al., Examining the Impact of Business Entrepreneurship and Innovation Entrepreneurship on Economic Growth in China[J]. Economic Research Journal,2009, (10): 99-108.
4. Lu Chuanyi, Li Zinai. Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth Theory[J].Journal of Tsinghua University(Philosophy and Social Sciences),2000, (3): 42-49.
5. Drucker, Peter F. Innovation and Entrepreneurship [M]. HarperBusiness; Reprint, 2006.
6. Ruan Rongping, Zheng Fengtian, Liu Li. The Power of Religious Believing:Does Religion Influence Entrepreneurship?[J].Economic Research Journal,2014, (3): 171-184.
7. William J. Baumol. The Free-Market Innovation Machine: Analyzing the Growth Miracle of Capitalism[J].Princeton University Press, 2014.
8. Wu Xiaobo. Thirty years of turbulence: Chinese enterprises 1978-2008 [M]. CITIC Press, 2014.
9. Xu Kangning, Feng Wei. The Industry Upgrading with Endogenous Home Market Size: The Third Path of Technological Innovation[J]. China Industrial Economics,2010, (11): 58-67.
10. Joseph A Schumpeter. Theory of Economic Development[M]. Routledge; New edition, 1981.
11. Zeng Cheng, Li Yuan-xu, Zhou Ying.Influence of Local Government Size on Heterogeneous Entrepreneurship in China——An Empirical Analysis Based on Provincial Panel Data[J].R & D Management, 2017, (6): 68-80.
12. Ardagna S, Lusardi A. Heterogeneity in the effect of regulation on entrepreneurship and entry size[R]. NBER Working Paper Series, 2009.
13. Bosma N, Schutjens V. Understanding regional variation in entrepreneurial activity and entrepreneurial attitude in europe[J]. Annals of Regional Science, 2011, 47(3): 711-742.
14. Chatterji A, Glaeser E, Kerr W. Clusters of entrepreneurship and innovation[J]. Innovation Policy & the Economy, 2014, 14(1): 129-166.
15. Elert N, Henrekson M, Stenkula M. Institutional reform for innovation and entrepreneurship[R].Springer International Publishing , 2017.
16. Feldman M, Francis J, Bercovitz J. Creating a cluster while building a firm: entrepreneurs and the formation of industrial clusters[J].Regional Studies, 2005, 39(1): 129-141.
17. Glaeser E L. Entrepreneurship and the city[R]. NBER Working Paper Series, 2007.
18. Glaeser E L, Kerr W R. Local industrial conditions and entrepreneurship: how much of the spatial distribution can we explain?[J].Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 2009, 18(3): 623-663.
19. Glaeser E L, Kerr S P, Kerr W R. Entrepreneurship and urban growth: An empirical assessment with historical mines[R]. NBER Working Paper Series, 2012.
20. Hagen E E. The economics of development[M]. Homewood, IL Richard D. Irwin 1980.
21. Hampel-Milagrosa A, Loewe M, Reeg C. The entrepreneur makes a difference: evidence on mse upgrading factors from egypt, india, and the philippines[J].World Development, 2015, 66(C): 118-130.
22. Lazear E P. Balanced skills and entrepreneurship[J]. American Economic Review, 2004, 94(2): 208-211.
23. Lewis W A. Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour[J].Manchester School, 1954, 22(2): 139-191.
24. Michael S C. Entrepreneurship, growth, and Adam Smith[J]. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2007, 1(3-4): 287-289.
25. Mthanti T, Ojah K. Entrepreneurial orientation(EO): Measurement and policy implications of entrepreneurship at the macroeconomic level[J].Research Policy, 2017, 46(4): 724-739.
26. Stam E. Entrepreneurship and innovation policy[J].Social Science Electronic Publishing, 2008, 5: 14-20.
27. Youssef A B, Boubaker S, Omri A. Entrepreneurship and sustainability: The need for innovative and institutional solutions[J].Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2018, 129: 232-241.
Cite this article
Feng Wei, Li Jiajia. Entrepreneurship and Industrial Upgrading: A Study Based on the Original Motivation of Economic Growth[J]. Foreign Economics & Management, 2019, 41(6): 29-42.
Export Citations as:
For
ISSUE COVER
RELATED ARTICLES