The incubator has played an important role in supporting the growth of new ventures and promoting the rapid development of the regional economy. However, the homogeneity of ventures in the incubator hinders effective value transformation. While most of the existing studies on the growth performance in the context of ecosystems are from a single perspective. On the one hand, the situational characteristics of ecosystems need to be further refined. On the other hand, the micro mechanism of the interaction between new ventures and the ecosystems needs to be further explored. As a complex and dynamic whole, the interdependence and collaboration among the various elements are crucial for creating value and maximizing the overall benefits in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. So how to make use of the ecological benefits provided by the incubator to promote the high-quality development of new ventures has become an urgent problem for both the theoretical and practical circles.
Using resource orchestration theory and strategic matching theory as theoretical foundations, this study focuses on 27 companies that have established a presence in the incubation parks, are actively engaged in physical operations, and have been recognized for their exemplary roles within the park, such as being designated as technology, manufacturing, or service demonstration enterprises. These companies are selected for their representativeness, innovative capabilities, and growth potential, offering valuable insights and inspiration to other businesses. Additionally, the study uses the criterion of being in operation for less than 8 years to identify and include new startups in the analysis. To enhance the reliability and validity of the survey, this study employs well-established scales from both domestic and international sources to craft the questionnaire items. The questionnaire is tailored to the research context following preliminary interviews, and is administered through on-site research and interviews conducted offline. Then the fsQCA method is used to explore the complex mechanism of the interaction between the actors of new ventures and the resource context in the entrepreneurial ecosystem from the perspective of configuration.
It is found that, firstly, there is not any single factor that constitutes a necessary leading to high/non-high growth performance, but resource diversity plays a general role in high growth performance path. Secondly, there are two equivalent configurations of the high-growth performance path, which can be further summarized into “making money by leveraging the situation” and “intensive collaboration”. There are two equivalent configurations of the non-high growth performance path, which can be further summarized as the “compound the difficulty” and the “dreamer with no action”. Thirdly, in a situation where resources are diverse but lack complementarity, the combination of resource capacity and resource leverage and the entrepreneurial ecological orientation can be effective substitutes for each other.
The managerial enlightenments of the paper are as follows. Firstly, new ventures should recognize the important role of resource diversity in achieving high growth performance, either by obtaining resources through diversified channels, or promoting the efficient absorption and utilization of resources. Secondly, new ventures can also broaden their ways of obtaining resources. For example, implicit resources through cooperative learning or explicit resources from the external environment to build resource combination. Taking the entire ecosystem as a whole, new ventures can better integrate themselves into the entrepreneurial ecosystem and achieve high-performance growth. Finally, new ventures should explore multiple paths of achieving high growth performance in the situation, and adjust their strategic orientation and resource management behavior flexibly.
This study has certain limitations regarding the size and scope of the sample, which could be mitigated by employing larger sample sizes or alternative quantitative analysis techniques. The current dataset lacks the depth and breadth required for a comprehensive analysis. For future studies, it is recommended to incorporate temporal dimensions and utilize the sophisticated Time Series Qualitative Comparative Analysis (TSQCA) method to examine panel data. This approach would provide a more nuanced understanding of how the interplay between resource context, resource orchestration, and entrepreneurial ecosystem orientation influences the growth performance of emerging ventures.