Chinese Management Studies

Purpose – Taking entrepreneurial opportunity identification activity as a starting point, the purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the differences within the social background of the Chinese nascent entrepreneurs and to illuminate differences in the success of their economic activities.

Design/methodology/approach – This study will analyze the impact of the nascent entrepreneurs' social class identity and prior experience affiliation on entrepreneurial opportunity identification and the moderation effect of opportunity identification modes. The empirical study was conducted with the data from the “Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (CPSED)” project, especially targeting new technology venture samples.

Findings – The findings indicate that the social class identity and prior experience affiliation of nascent entrepreneurs (pre-determined factors) have a significant impact on the innovativeness of their entrepreneurial identification. Because they determine opportunity identification results, these pre-determined factors play a much more important role than the mode of the opportunity identification.

Originality/value – The findings provide a theoretical contribution to the transitional study with the unique data of the CPSED project. This study could be taken as the comparison for transnational cooperation and provides suggestions to government and entrepreneurship supporting agencies.