企业高管的衍生创业机制——基于专用性资产的影响研究

The Mechanism of Executives’Spin-off Entrepreneurship:The Influence of Specific Assets

在国内创业浪潮中,越来越多曾在著名企业工作的企业高管离职后选择衍生创业。目前学者对员工衍生创业或企业衍生创业研究较多,而对企业高管这一群体的衍生创业关注还不够。本文基于新制度经济学的专用性资产理论,采用案例研究方法,以两家在国内细分行业处于领先位置的企业为研究对象,旨在从企业高管创业者积累的专用性资产视角,解释企业高管衍生创业的理论机制。案例研究发现,高管积累的专用性资产是企业高管衍生创业的重要初始资源,并且影响了其衍生创业机制:(1)收益落差、职业瓶颈和理念冲突等因素会产生专用性资产租金落差,会驱动企业高管选择衍生创业以实现潜在收益;(2)高管在母公司积累的专用性资产使得高管创业者在相同行业或相似领域更容易识别和开发创业机会;(3)由于专用性资产的专用性特质,高管创业者更倾向于选择基于互补性的创业团队成员,以实现创业资源的整合和优化。本案例研究发现了高管在母公司积累的专用性资产在其衍生创业中发挥了重要的影响,解释了高管衍生创业为什么能够获得快速创新成长,同时在理论上从新制度经济学角度进一步补充和深化了传统的创业动机、机会和资源观。

In recent years,with the accelerated updating and iteration of high-tech and the fierce impact of global competition,the phenomenon of spin-off entrepreneurship by corporate executives has frequently occurred,especially the executives working in large international companies.In a broad sense,scholars call this phenomenon spin-off entrepreneurship,which refers to the entrepreneurial behavior in which individuals in the same industry leave the original company and establish a new company.Although there is a lot of research on employee entrepreneurship or spin-off entrepreneurship,it is surprising that spin-off entrepreneurship for the group of corporate executives has received little attention.So far,there has not been a clear and rigorous theoretical framework that can provide a theoretical basis for analyzing and explaining the phenomenon of corporate executives’spin-off entrepreneurship.Different from ordinary employees,the executives of large companies make a high level of specific asset investment in the fields they engaged in after years of experience accumulation.If they fail to obtain a considerable return on these specific assets from the parent company for various reasons,they may produce an important motivation or driving force to choose spin-off businesses.In particular,corporate executives who work in large international companies have a stronger motivation to realize the rent of potential specific assets after leaving the company,because they can transfer the accumulated specific assets to new ventures through spin-off entrepreneurship to realize potential income.Therefore,in terms of individual motivation,corporate executives employed by large companies have more access to valuable entrepreneurial information.Executive entrepreneurs can use their industry experience to tap into neglected entrepreneurial opportunities or create new market opportunities through entrepreneurship.Therefore,their motivation for spin-off entrepreneurship may be different from that of ordinary employees.Based on this logic,this paper attempts to analyze the entrepreneurial motivations of corporate executives from the perspective of specific assets.Based on the theoretical perspective of specific assets,this paper takes two leading companies in the domestic sub-industry as the research subjects,and explores the formation of executive-derived entrepreneurial motivations of the case companies and their connections with the parent company.The case study finds that the specific assets accumulated by executives are an important initial resource for executives’spin-off entrepreneurship and affect their spin-off entrepreneurship.This paper finally constructs a motivation-opportunity-resource spin-off entrepreneurial mechanism based on the perspective of specific assets and draws the following conclusions.(1)Income gap,career bottleneck and conflict of ideas and other factors will produce the rent gap of specific assets,which will drive executives to choose spin-off entrepreneurship to realize potential income.(2)The special assets accumulated by executives in the parent company make it easier for executives to identify and develop entrepreneurial opportunities in the same industry or similar fields.(3)Due to the specificity of specific assets,executives are more inclined to choose complementary entrepreneurial team members to achieve the integration and optimization of entrepreneurial resources.This paper has the following theoretical contributions.Firstly,this paper proposes the concept of rent gap of specific assets and believes that the imbalance between the rent of specific assets owned by executive entrepreneurs and the actual value forms the rent gap of specific assets,which has also become an important reason for executives to quit and choose to start new businesses.In order to realize the potential rent of their special assets and create greater rent of special assets,corporate executives will choose spin-off entrepreneurship.Secondly,based on the perspective of specific assets,this paper deepens and innovates the resource view and opportunity view of spin-off entrepreneurship and discusses the relevant theories and problems of spin-off entrepreneurship.It is an attempt to combine the spin-off entrepreneurship theory with the asset specificity theory and it enriches the former theory.This paper explores the types of initial resources that spin-off entrepreneurs rely on,the sources and functions of initial resources,as well as the association mechanism with parent companies,and makes it clear that the initial resources that corporate executives rely on in spin-off entrepreneurship are special assets to a large extent.Finally,based on specific assets,this paper constructs the motivation-opportunity-resource model of executives’spin-off entrepreneurship.The spin-off entrepreneurial model of executives summarized in this paper mainly includes three elements:(1)entrepreneurial motivation-rent gap of specific assets;(2)entrepreneurial opportunities-identifying and developing opportunities based on specific assets;(3)entrepreneurial team resources-integration and optimization based on complementary entrepreneurial team members.The rediscovery of the problem of spin-off entrepreneurship in this paper also has certain practical significance for companies and entrepreneurs.For companies,while maintaining the realization of the strategic goals of the company,it is necessary to pay attention to the negative impact of the resignation of executives on the company and timely solve the problems of career development and compensation of managers who own these specific assets.Meanwhile,if executives’spin-off entrepreneurship cannot be avoided,it is necessary to establish a suitable talent selection,employment and retention mechanism.For entrepreneurs,in order to achieve better career development and human capital dividend,they should constantly accumulate their own assets or capital,especially specific assets,so that they can obtain better development and treatment in the original company.When resigning from the original company to start a business is an inevitable or a better choice,their own specific assets will become an important guarantee for the success of the new business,as well as the basis and premise for future earnings.