The Deviated Mechanisms between Chintrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship– Collectivism or Individualism in Forming the Mechanism of China-way of Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Is entrepreneurship the cause, or the consequence of economic development? Why does an economic downturn provide opportunities for entrepreneurship? How is the mechanism of entrepreneurship differentiated between developed and developing economies? How can the democracy and free-market based agent theory explain the mechanism of entrepreneurship in an autocratic and cronyism-oriented political system like China? Motivated to explore these unsettled conceptual questions, an extensive literature review and a broad range of interviews were employed as the method of this study to rationalize the formational and functional mechanism of Chintrepreneurship (China-way of Entrepreneurship) in boosting the leapfrog of China economy. This paper argues that, neither Schumpeterianism nor Keynesianism alone is able to theoretically reflect the path-dependent rise of Chintrepreneurship in today’s dynamically globalized and diversified business environment. Instead, only the combination of the two camps can help rationalize the mechanism of how government intervention can act as an indispensable and irreplaceable adjustor of political-economical environment to cultivate entrepreneurship. Hence, the traditionally presumed tripartite framework (entrepreneurship, industrialization, economic growth) must be adjusted in order to offset or overcome the weakness of existing literature, and to solve the dilemmatic puzzle: which one of individualism and collectivism is more contributive to the mechanism of entrepreneurship? By defining a series of critical conditions and criteria, this paper proposes a BRIDGE model to rationalize the role of government intervention, and the observed trade-offs, such as the impact of dual-track policy on regional and wealth disparities in China. Two case studies and recommendations are suggested.