An Argument on the Existing Framework of Entrepreneurship Shanzhai: An Emerging Entrepreneurial Model

This paper scrutinizes, comprehensively and extensively, the theoretical and empirical evidences, factors and characteristics adopted in the existing literature on the construct of entrepreneurship framework; examines horizontally and vertically the implications and indications derived from previous researches, and interprets logically the mechanisms and patterns of evolutionary path of entrepreneurship framework; proposes and discusses analytically, a revised definition of entrepreneurship, which stipulates that entrepreneurship is an opportunity-and-capability oriented management system supported by three principles necessary for the sustainability of entrepreneurship. This paper establishes and delineates systematically, a trilogy framework to anatomize and demonstrate the five fatal factors that help explain the common causes of why so many entrepreneurial failures (linear thinking, discontinued entrepreneurial commitment, inability of effective knowledge management, internal erosion of inertia, and external erosion of imitation activities). Additionally, this paper highlights the dynamic and contextual relationship between entrepreneurship and business environment; emphasizes the role of government in promoting and incubating the development of entrepreneurship; maps out the trajectory path from imitation to innovation; rationalizes the inevitability of imitation as an entrepreneurial approach, especially when a firm?s technological capability and resources are limited; hence, theorizes an indisputable argument that Shanzhai is an emerging entrepreneurial model, or, a Chinese way of entrepreneurial model featured by the evolutionary path from imitation to innovation, and that the framework of Shanzhai model may serve to bridge the divides between the West-Dominated-Management-Framework and the newly emerged East-Way-of-Doing-Business. Lastly, this paper presents three case studies, confirming and emphasizing the decisive role of entrepreneurial capabilities in identifying, capturing and transforming opportunities into business operations and values. Recommendations and suggestions for future research are accordingly provided.