Entrepreneur Network Behavior as the Gamechanger for Venture Performance : the Mediation Effect of Social Capital and Tacit Knowledge

Abstract

The individual characteristics continue to set apart who a successful or failed entrepreneurs and business ventures are in the business environment. The study therefore sought to investigate network behavior mechanism as a gamechanger for venture performance; the mediation effect of social capital and tacit knowledge. Entrepreneurs here were regarded as individuals who created their businesses and therefore respondents other than owners were not included in the study population. In total, 530 entrepreneurs were selected from three cities in Jiangsu Province. Purposive, convenient and simple random sampling techniques were applied in choosing the respondents. 410 completed questionnaires were retrieved. The results show that entrepreneurs engaging in network building attitude, network maintenance and network orientation determined their network behaviour. Network behaviour then positively and directly influences venture performance. This effect was significant showing that any effort or activities that lead to network behavior wield a corresponding effect on startups business performance. The results indicated that social capital mediated the relationship such that entrepreneur network behavior indirectly influences venture performance. Tacit knowledge acquisition was shown to boosts network behaviour effect on venture performance. This study departs from the psychological perspective which mainly focus on stable features of the entrepreneur to include the behaviour mechanisms hence makes the study central to better understand the entrepreneurial behavior and performance relationships.