Browsing by Subject "Entrepreneurial ecosystem"

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New frontier of digital media and entertainment : exploring entrepreneurship in the Chinese digital game industry
(2020-05-07) Huang, Gejun; Chen, Wenhong (Media scholar); Straubhaar, Joseph; Watkins, Samuel C; Kokas, Aynne
The Chinese game market has witnessed rapid and sustainable growth since the late 2000s. In the same vein, the Chinese digital game industry has demonstrated unprecedented vitality and competitiveness via the rise of Chinese game companies on a global scale in relation to the burgeoning scene of gaming entrepreneurship. A growing body of literature has attended to the phenomenal success of Chinese game industry. Much as primarily focused on why and how the Chinese government uses market interventions to unpack the dynamics between and among the national state, the domestic industry, and the global major players in the Chinese game market. However, their accounts of gaming entrepreneurship in China are rather limited, lacking examinations on how they start and grow their new ventures. To fill these research gaps, my dissertation examines gaming entrepreneurs in China with focus on their venture creation efforts regarding their social capital and situated entrepreneurial ecosystem. It employs a three-article approach based on 33 qualitative interviews with gaming entrepreneurs in Shanghai, China’s most globalized industry hub. Relevant cultural policy contents are also examined to complement the discussions. In the first article, I examine how the local cultural policy, with a growing emphasis on entrepreneurship, has affected gaming entrepreneurs’ venture creation from an entrepreneurial ecosystem perspective. I highlight entrepreneurs’ experience with and reflection on dealing with government financial supports and supportive organizations, i.e., incubators/accelerators and co-working spaces located in creative industry clusters. In the second article, I illustrate gaming entrepreneurs’ varied approaches to social capital access and mobilization for the purpose of identifying entrepreneurial opportunities at the pre-market entry stage of venture creation. I highlight the underlying reasons of their intragroup differences of social capital use, as well as the influences of their situated industry sectors. In the third article, I depict how gaming entrepreneurs leverage social capital to acquire financial capital from the local entrepreneurial ecosystem’s major capital providers. I cast light on entrepreneurs’ specific patterns of networking with each provider and pinpoint their networking adjustments in response to the worsening fundraising environment.