Abstract
This research aims to investigate ethical values, social insurance, and start-up success inChina. Recent research into entrepreneurship, eg, Woiceshyn (2011), focuses on the
relationship between ethics and the success of entrepreneurship, and proposes that an
entrepreneur’s ethical values are a critical factor for his or her entrepreneurial success.
However this critical success factor (“CSF”) belief has not been fully explored in
scholarly discussion, in the context of the entrepreneurial world. The CSF belief is
based on rational egoism, which assumes ethics as a necessary guidance to long-term
self-interest such as success in business. This thesis is intended to examine the validity
of the CSF belief through elaborating a mediation model of how entrepreneurs’ ethical
values affect their start-up success in China.
I will test whether or not an entrepreneur’s ethical values (familism, integrity, work
ethics, anti-individualism, and emphases on reputation, trust, and reciprocities) are
related to his or her start-up performance (in terms of growth percentage of total
incomes/revenues) and success (in terms of survival time), through the mediation of
his/her practices of social insurance to employees in start-up.
I will draw on existing researches on the ethical decision-making of entrepreneurs, and
in particular on Solymossy and Masters (2002), to propose a model of social insurance
decision-making by small business entrepreneurs. I suggest some ways (ie, the need for
the integration of cash or financial considerations, ethical tolerance, technological
impact, ethical implementation, and the relationship to performance and success) in
which the social insurance framework of entrepreneurs may differ systematically from
that of other businesses.
The investigation of the social insurance decision-making model shows that Chinese
entrepreneurs tend to follow rational or material (short term or long term), ideological
and reputational criteria, when making social insurance decisions. However, cash or
financial considerations seem to stand out but not to dominate ethical concerns with
respect to their impact on social insurance decisions. Aside from the considerations of
cash or financials, once the confounding effects of ethical tolerance and technological
impact are controlled, ethical values have a true effect on social insurance decisions.
Furthermore, social insurance implementation can be influenced as a result of ethical
considerations in small and medium enterprises (“SMEs”) overall. My investigation has
demonstrated that ethical values are related to social insurance decisions.
An in-depth analysis of the research results has suggested that entrepreneurs’ ethical
values influence the performance or success of a new venture. Meanwhile, some less
ethical implementation actions, eg, circumventing and escaping, and pushing for a
minimum standard of social insurance have significant but negative correlations with
the growth rate, and/or with survival time. The mediation effects are therefore
dependent on the implementation conditions.
The analytic procedures have revealed a mediation model: the ethical value of work
ethics (rejecting others’ indolence and wallowing in luxuries and pleasures) are
positively related to the start-ups’ survival time, by means of not trying to lower
insurance premiums through reducing employees’ total wages. Future studies will
explore this mediation model.
My investigation has, to certain extent, validated the argument that entrepreneurs’
ethical values are a critical factor in the success of entrepreneurship, although I
acknowledge that this mediation model will need future research in order to be fully
justified.
| Date of Award | 2014 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
|
| Supervisor | Xinzhong Yao (Supervisor), Vanesa Pesque Cela (Supervisor), Jan Knoerich (Supervisor) & Kun-Chin Lin (Supervisor) |