Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to build a research model to examine the effects of business planning on the new venture emergence, as well as to examine the moderating effects of innovativeness of products.Design/methodology/approach: Four hypotheses are put forward and examined by hierarchical binary logistic regression. The data of this paper are based on the first two waves of data from Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics project.Findings: Results show that engaging in business planning has a positive effect on the new venture emergence, and the timing of business planning does not affect the new venture emergence significantly. This study also finds that the innovativeness of products has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the timing of business planning and the new venture emergence.Research limitations/implications: This study has some limitations. The innovativeness of products is measured by a single indicator, which may not completely reflect the meaning of the attribute. Moreover, this study explores new ventures only in the nascent stage.Practical implications: The study is useful for entrepreneurs to realize the importance of business planning. First, engaging in business planning in early start-up stage is a very valuable activity, because business planning can help new ventures reduce the loss caused by trial and error learning. Second, engaging in business planning is more likely to ensure high innovative products quickly be accepted by the market. Because in the process of new venture emergence, the legitimacy signal to stakeholders can be transmitted and new products can be promoted to get support and recognition from stakeholder through the business plan.Originality/value: This paper focuses on the early stage of new venture life cycle and the contextual factors to explore the influence of business planning on the new venture emergence under the logic of legitimacy. This paper could enrich business planning research from the perspective of legitimacy theory by inspiring scholars to focus on the differences between new ventures and mature enterprises and to offer proposals of legitimation strategies suitable for new ventures. Meanwhile, this study contributes to the understanding of the contextual factors of business planning. And it discusses the impact of the attribute in business planning on the new venture emergence, which helps scholars to get a deep thought about the value of business planning in entrepreneurial process.

How entrepreneurs make entrepreneurial decisions to improve entrepreneurial performance is a popular concern in both theoretical and practical circles. Existing studies mostly analyze the effect of entrepreneurial decision-making logic on the survival and growth of new ventures from the perspective of financial performance, but few studies focus on new venture sustainability. Based on datasets from the first two survey rounds of CPSED (Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics), this paper selects a group of 259 entrepreneurs as a sample and uses logistic regression analysis as a research method. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of entrepreneurial decision-making logic on new venture sustainability. There are two main entrepreneurial logics, namely effectuation and causation. The paper discusses causation in terms of four dimensions, namely goal orientation, expected returns, competitive analysis, and avoiding contingencies. It examines effectuation in terms of the dimensions of means orientation, affordable loss, partnerships, and leveraging contingencies. The empirical results show that goal orientation plays a negative role in promoting new venture sustainability, while avoiding contingencies has a positive influence on it. Partnerships are conducive to new venture sustainability, while means orientation and leveraging contingencies have a negative effect.

There is more and more digital entrepreneurship emerging in practice, but research on it is rare and scattered, meaning that a review of digital entrepreneurship is important and necessary. Based on a data set covering 19 years of research, from 2003 to 2021, this article reviews 469 available articles from the Web of Science Core Collection. Using a scientific knowledge map, it divides digital entrepreneurship research into two stages, namely the “emerging stage” (2003–2017) and the “booming stage” (2018–2021). Research developed slowly in the emerging stage, focusing on the definition of digital entrepreneurship, the influence of digital technology, and antecedents of digital entrepreneurship. In the booming stage, however, digital entrepreneurship research grew explosively. This article sorts out the topics from three aspects, that is, organizational behavior, digital entrepreneurial ecosystem, and business model innovation. Longitudinal research, multi-case studies, mixed methods, and quantitative studies become mainstream, replacing the earlier single-case studies and conceptual analyses. The frontiers of research on digital entrepreneurship focus on digital entrepreneurial ecosystems, business model innovation, digital academic entrepreneurship, digital transformation, and the antecedents of digital entrepreneurship. This article proposes four future directions, including the interaction of digital entrepreneurship elements, the process of digital entrepreneurship with a dynamic perspective, digital entrepreneurship research at the community level, and digital entrepreneurship research in different contexts.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to bridge the obvious gap presented in research on antecedents of effectuation by building a research model from the perspectives of effectuation and entrepreneurial opportunity.Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines the effects of patterns of opportunity discovery and the innovativeness of entrepreneurial opportunity on the decision-making process of effectuation in new venture creation. Eight hypotheses are put forward and examined by hierarchical multiple logistic regression. The data in this paper are based on the first two rounds of survey data from Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial dynamics.Findings: The empirical results show that patterns of opportunity discovery have significant positive effects (at least partially) on effectuation. Namely, entrepreneurs employing fortuitous discovery tend to use available means and leverage contingency. And with lower innovativeness of opportunity, entrepreneurs are more likely to use affordable loss and leverage contingency.Research limitations/implications: The study is limited to each dimension of effectuation based on the single-item measure, which cannot completely reflect the effectual construct. More research should to be done to improve measures of effectuation.Practical implications: The findings are useful for entrepreneurs to make effective decisions whether to choose effectuation in the face of different patterns of opportunity discovery. Besides, it provides the advice on how to cope with the innovativeness of opportunity and seize entrepreneurial opportunities to entrepreneurs.Originality/value: This paper first systematically studies the effects of entrepreneurial opportunity on effectuation, making up for the obvious gap of research on antecedents of effectuation.

By neglecting endogenous factors, existing studies that usually focus on examining the effect of exogenous characteristics on entrepreneurial decision-making logic has drawn conflicting conclusions. This paper explores the influences of cognitive styles on entrepreneurial decision-making logic, as well as the moderating role of environmental uncertainty. Using a multiregional sample of 336 Chinese entrepreneurs, the study obtained results by conducting multiple linear regression. Entrepreneurs with an intuitive cognitive style tend to apply causal logic, while those with an analytical cognitive style are inclined to adopt effectual logic. Environmental uncertainty moderates the effect of cognitive styles on some dimensions of entrepreneurial decision-making logic. In an uncertain environment, entrepreneurs with an intuitive cognitive style reduce the use of the logics of affordable loss and leveraging contingencies, while entrepreneurs with an analytical cognitive style reduce the use of the expected return logic. This paper clarifies the relationship between intuitive and analytical cognitive styles, which are always considered to be antithetical. This implies that they always coexist, instead of competing with each other in entrepreneurial decision-making. This finding verifies that entrepreneurial decision-making logic is the result of interactions between cognition and the environment, inspiring scholars to explore it from the combination of multiple elements.