Entrepreneurship research in China: internationalization or contextualization?

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is an emerging research field that has received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Given the global scope of this attention, this article compares entrepreneurship research in China with that in the USA and Europe. Based on publications in Social Science Citation Index and Chinese Social Science Citation Index databases over the past 10 years, we use bibliometric method to analyse entrepreneurship research in different regions. Our analysis shows that, on the one hand, entrepreneurship research in China has much in common with such research in the USA and Europe. In addition to borrowing ideas from Western researchers, Chinese entrepreneurship researchers study similar themes and use similar theoretical foundations. On the other hand, Chinese contextual environment helps preserve the uniqueness of its entrepreneurship research. Researchers deal with several context-specific topics such as guanxi, i.e. networks of interpersonal relationships, and its influence on entrepreneurship. We further discuss ways for Chinese researchers to explore the distinct context and contribute to the global literature.

Keywords::

• entrepreneurship research
• China
• bibliometric analysis
• context
• similarity
• uniqueness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. The USA and Europe were included in the comparison framework because they are the two largest entrepreneurship research outlets in the world. For example, in his research, Shane (1997) ranked institutes for entrepreneurship research, and, without exception, all top 20 productive institutes are located in the USA and Europe. In a more recent study, Brush, Manolova, and Edelman (2008) found that the USA is the largest entrepreneurship outlet, while European entrepreneurship research is expanding greatly. Moreover, in a separate study, Schildt, Zahra, and Sillanpää (2006) documented the number of entrepreneurship research publications by country. From 2000 to 2004, US researchers published 374 articles, European researchers published 313 articles and researchers from other regions published 109 articles. It is evident that the USA and Europe are two largest entrepreneurship research outlets which produce more than 80% of all entrepreneurship-related articles.

^2. The Chinese Social Science Index database, which covers more than 500 important Chinese academic journals in the social science field, is the most authoritative database for social science research in China.

^3. This is mainly reflected by the time that Chinese researchers joined global entrepreneurship discourse.

^4. Industrial entry barriers exist in both developed and developing economies. However, industrial barriers in China are mainly caused by Chinese Government's emphasis on state ownership. For example, by 2009, private firms were still allowed to enter only 41 out of more than 80 total industries in China (Xinhua News, 30 December 2009).

^5. ‘创业^*’ and ‘新创企业’ mean ‘entrep^*’, ‘start-up’/‘startup’, ‘new firm^*’ and ‘new venture^*’ in Chinese.

^6. For detailed information regarding articles included in all bibliometric maps, feel free to contact [email protected].

^7. There are at least two major reasons for the different citation patterns of Chinese researchers. First, researchers from China may experience difficulty in accessing ‘older’ journal articles and books. Second, China began its entrepreneurship research comparatively late. It means that recent findings influence Chinese researchers more than older findings. For these reasons, Chinese researchers cite more recent publications and fewer ‘older’ publications.

^8. All articles in the CSSCI database are in Chinese, with almost no contribution from Western researchers. Thus, we analyse only the research collaboration for articles indexed in the SSCI database.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Project of Humanities and Social Science, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China [grant number 11JD039] and National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 41471108].