創業家個人特質與社會網絡關連之探討

Abstract

台灣中小企業發展蓬勃，創業家發揮創業精神，共同創造了台灣的經濟奇蹟，過去探討有關創業的文獻包括創業家特質、創業團隊、創業環境等，本研究著重在創業家行為面中一個重要的向度：社會網絡行為，探討以下幾個問題：了解創業家在創業過程中對社會網絡的建立與運用的情形、以及社會網絡是否能夠為創業家帶來相當的附加價值？而什麼樣的因素會影響到創業家的社會網絡行為？本研究經由文獻探討整理出社會網絡相關概念，以及過去文獻相關的個案分析，分析出創業家如何利用社會網絡獲得資源，歸結出創業家建立關係的方式，並以此作為量化研究的依據。本研究發現創業家會經由不同的管道，包括正式的組織協會與非正式的場合與別人互動，從不同的關係身上可以得到不同的資訊。 此外，本研究採用問卷量化方式探討創業家的人口統計變項與人格特質對創業家社會網絡行為的影響，研究結果發現，雖然創業家過去的人口統計背景變項(工作經驗、家庭背景、社團經驗)會影響到創業家初創業時社會網絡的基礎，工作經驗常與人接觸、家庭成員較多具有創業經驗、較多社團經驗的創業家，其所能獲得的資訊較多，表示其過去所建立的人脈可以幫助他獲取較多資訊，但是影響創業家目前社會網絡行為最重要的因素還是在於創業家的人格特質，包括外向性、社交能力與成就動機，越外向、社交能力越好、成就動機越高的創業家，會越積極地建立自己的社會網絡關係，並且從中獲取經營事業所需之資訊。本研究期透過此一具體的描述創業家的社會網絡行為，給實務上的創業家一些參考與建議，希望能夠帶給創業家們一種啟發，幫助其在經營新創事業時更加順利。

Small and medium-sized enterprises create great economical result in Taiwan.There are a lot of researches discussing about the characteristics of Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial management team, and entrepreneurial environment etc. This research focused on the behaviors of Entrepreneurs and especially focuses on social networks of them. This research analyzed the role of social networks in the process of running a new business. And answered some questions such as how Entrepreneurs build and use their social networks? Can these social networks bring any benefits for the business? What kind of factors can affect entrepreneurs’ social network behaviors? This research explored the cases of Entrepreneurs in past researches and extracted the ways that entrepreneurs use to establish social networks and used these results to do quantitive analysis. This research induced that Entrepreneurs may via different channels to connect others and gain some information. This research also used questionnaires to do survey to analyze the relationships of personality characteristics and demographics of entrepreneurs toward entrepreneurs’ social network behaviors. We founded that although the demographic variables including working experiences, background of family members, and joining activities in school may form a basis of social networks and can gain benefit from them. The most important factor that affects how entrepreneurs build and maintain social networks is their personality characteristics such as extraction, social abilities, and achievement motivation. The more extraction, achievement motivation and social abilities the entrepreneurs have, the more actively they will establish their own social networks. We hoped this research can give some suggestions to entrepreneurs in practice so that they can understand the importance of social networks and know what kind of information they can get from social networks and the ways that they can build their own networks. It hoped that this research can be helpful toward entrepreneurs and can give some ideas for them.