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Abstract National innovation capability (NIC) is an important manifestation of economic development quality and international competitiveness. Previous studies focus mainly on the static impact of factors in the national innovation system on NIC in a given year. Research is still lacking on whether these factors have continuing, stable impacts on NIC in different economies. To fill this literature gap, this study uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to conduct cross-economy and cross-year comparisons and discusses how the five elements of the NIS jointly affected the NIC of different economies from 2011 to 2022. The results indicate that the necessity consistency of infrastructure for NIC shows a temporal trend. There are four paths to generating high NIC in high-income economies, but only two such paths for upper middle-income economies. The path combining human capital and research, market sophistication, and business sophistication can drive both types of economies to generate high NIC. The research results have improved the transparency of innovation paths and provided a reference for different economies to achieve sustainable development.

Abstract College students represent a burgeoning force in mass entrepreneurship, underscoring the critical need to nurture their entrepreneurial endeavors. This study adopts a quantitative method, surveying 33,660 Chinese college students engaged in entrepreneurial activities. It examines the impact of various entrepreneurial policies and regional entrepreneurship spirit on these students’ decision-making processes. The findings reveal a positive correlation between entrepreneurial policies and entrepreneurial decision-making among college students, with regional entrepreneurship spirit serving as a mediator. Gender influences the relationship between regional entrepreneurship spirit and entrepreneurial decision-making, primarily moderating the effects of supply-based and environmentally-oriented policies. Entrepreneurship must be deeply integrated within China’s unique social networks and informal institutional frameworks. The moderating influence of gender also highlights differing policy impacts among various student groups. This research contributes to the enhancement and understanding of the policy support mechanism’s effect on college students and underscores the necessity for precise implementation of entrepreneurship policies tailored to college students.

In the contemporary digital economy, economic development increasingly relies on the innovation and dissemination of knowledge. Academic entrepreneurship, as a direct channel for knowledge dissemination into the marketplace, is significantly influenced by digital technology. Consequently, how to improve academic entrepreneurial ability has become a hot research topic. This study is grounded in the theory of reciprocal determinism within the context of the digital economy. We use the “2019 China Digital Economy Development Index White Paper” and collect data from 1843 survey questionnaires in China to conduct empirical research with a ridge regression model. It primarily focuses on the following individual factors and social environmental factors on academic entrepreneurial ability of teachers (AEAT): digital economy (DE), organizational support (OS), policy environment (PE), and personal learning growth (PLG). First, the findings show that the DE, OS, PE, and PLG have a significant positive impact on improving AEAT. Second, the results also indicate that social environmental factors relative to personal factors will have a greater impact. Finally, this study not only presents the first attempt to establish a connection between DE and AEAT but also holds significant managerial implications for enhancing AEAT within the context of the DE. Despite the increasing body of literature on academic entrepreneurship, the research domain pertaining specifically to AEAT remains fragmented and lacks comprehensive theoretical development. There is a pressing need for more systematic and thorough investigations to unveil the black box of factors influencing AEAT in the context of the DE.

This study investigates synergies between individual and national variables that promote opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship with a framework based on the national system of entrepreneurship. A qualitative comparative analysis of fuzzy sets of 39 country cases shows that institutional or individual cognitive elements are not necessary for high-opportunity or high-necessity entrepreneurship but that enhancing entrepreneurs’ ability perceptions play a universal role. The study's findings reveal optimal pathways that combine the institutional environment and individual perceptions to promote the synergistic development of opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship and reduce differences in entrepreneurial activities between countries.

College students are the new force of mass entrepreneurship and innovation. This study classifies 170,759 college students in China by province, based on the institutional theory, and employs necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze six conditional factors at three levels: the regulatory, normative, and cognitive environment. Thereafter, this study empirically explores the influencing path and optimization mechanism of college students’ entrepreneurial willingness. The results indicate that: (1) A regulatory environment is necessary for high entrepreneurial willingness. (2) There are two types of innovation models that produce high entrepreneurial willingness. (3) The antecedent condition of the cognition system has a low impact on college students’ entrepreneurial willingness. The research conclusion expands the innovation perspective of the association between institutional theory and entrepreneurial willingness, helps to fully understand the influencing factors of college students’ entrepreneurial willingness, and provides theoretical reference and practical enlightenment for effectively stimulating college students’ entrepreneurial willingness.

Entrepreneurs' innovativeness is an important factor affecting the performance of start-up companies. Based on social cognitive theory, this study analyzes the relationship between female entrepreneurs' innovativeness and entrepreneurial performance at a more localized level using a sample of 558 Chinese female entrepreneurs. The mediating variables are opportunity recognition and development and psychological capital; the moderating variable is gender stereotypes. The results reveal three important findings. First, female entrepreneurs' innovativeness was significantly and positively related to entrepreneurial performance. Second, opportunity recognition and development and psychological capital had significant mediating effects between female entrepreneurs' innovativeness and entrepreneurial performance. Finally, gender stereotypes had a negative moderating effect on female opportunity recognition and development. The study results provide a theoretical and practical reference for how women in entrepreneurial practice can improve their firm's performance and provide insights into female entrepreneurship theory research.

Entrepreneurial activity measures a country's economic vitality. Studies have examined the psychological cognitive conditions that influence women's entrepreneurial activity by considering the effects of individual psychological cognitive conditions in isolation while ignoring their interdependence. Based on the necessary condition analysis and the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, this study utilized data from the 2021 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report for 42 countries and explored the complex causal mechanisms driving women's entrepreneurial activity. We observed that (1) a single psychological cognitive factor does not constitute a necessary condition for high female entrepreneurial activity (FEA), despite high entrepreneurial expectation and capability perception (CP); (2) the driving mechanisms for high and low FEA can be categorized into three and four pathways, respectively. There is an asymmetric relationship between the driving paths of high and low FEA. Finally, we propose three measures to support female entrepreneurship: optimizing female psychological cognition, improving female CP, and establishing excellent female entrepreneurial role models.

The global innovation environment is undergoing major changes. Driven by its entrepreneurship policy, China's innovation level has gradually improved, but the regional gap remains large. As previous studies mainly focused on the net impact of entrepreneurship policy on innovation, knowledge on the combination of entrepreneurship policies to improve regional innovation capability is still lacking. To fill this gap in the literature, this study uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on data from 31 provinces in China to explore how five entrepreneurship policies (i.e., technology transfer, fiscal and tax, digital transformation, talent, and government innovation management policy) jointly affect regional innovation capability. The results show that these five entrepreneurship policies are sufficient conditions for high regional innovation capability, and three paths can produce high innovation capability. Therefore, local governments need to formulate appropriate entrepreneurship policies to address the actual situation. This study has important management significance for formulating entrepreneurship policies worldwide, especially in developing countries.

Developing agriculture is an important way to get rid of poverty and boost economic development. Entrepreneurship, especially entrepreneurship education, is considered to be an important contributor to the realization of the above objectives. Entrepreneurship education has received more and more attention. Improving the entrepreneurial willingness and skills of agricultural students is of great significance to the economic and social development of developing countries. In order to explore the relationship between entrepreneurship education curricula and satisfaction, especially the agricultural students, we conducted a questionnaire survey in 35 universities across the country between 2018 and 2019 to evaluate the entrepreneurship education of agricultural students in Chinese universities. And 1223 valid questionnaires with 7 interviews were obtained. Furthermore, we used the structural equation model to empirically analyze the questionnaire data and found that entrepreneurship practice plays a part in the mediating effect between entrepreneurship curriculum and satisfaction with entrepreneurship education. This paper expands literature on entrepreneurship education and has certain reference significance for training a large number of agricultural entrepreneurial talents the practice of entrepreneurship education in other developing countries.

Entrepreneurship competitions are an important way to implement entrepreneurship education in universities and the main way for many students improve their entrepreneurial competence. To clarify the mechanism of the role of entrepreneurship competition on the entrepreneurial competence of university students, based on data from a sample of 170,764 university students from 31 provinces in China, this study constructs a moderated mediation model that focuses on the mediating role of entrepreneurial spirit (ES) in entrepreneurial competition (ECompetition) and entrepreneurial competence (ECompetence) and the moderating role of entrepreneurial practice (EP). The results showed that ECompetition found to have a significant positive predictive effect on ECompetence. ES plays a mediating role in the relationship between ECompetition and competence. The direct predictive effect of ECompetition on ECompetence and the mediating effect of ES on their relationship is moderated by EP. The results provide a new perspective on the impact of entrepreneurship competition on college students’ entrepreneurial competence and expands the experiential learning theory in entrepreneurship education.

Entrepreneurship education complements vocational education in helping students develop their career prospects. This empirical study comprehensively analyzed sample data of 13,885 students from 40 “Double High-level Plan” higher vocational colleges in China using robust standard error regression analysis and other methods. The results showed that Entrepreneurship Practice (EP), Entrepreneurship Curriculum (EC), and Integration of Entrepreneurship Education and Professional Education (IEEPE) have a significant positive effect on Entrepreneurship Education Performance (EEP), with EP being the most important factor. Furthermore, ascribed factors (gender, household registration, only child or not, whether parents have entrepreneurial experience) and self-achieved factors (double high-level type, school area, subject major, whether to accept social entrepreneurship education) were found to affect students' perception of investment in entrepreneurship education. The study summarizes the existing problems of entrepreneurship education in “Double High-level Plan” higher vocational colleges and proposes four suggestions: pursue the integrated development of entrepreneurship education and “Double High-level” construction, advance both theoretical education and practical education, promote digital reform of the “three teaches” (teachers, teaching materials, and teaching methods), and develop entrepreneurship education in a comprehensive and balanced manner. This has certain theoretical and practical significance for the improvement of entrepreneurship education in other developing countries.

At present, research in the field of college students' entrepreneurship has proliferated, but these studies tend to analyze the net benefits of various factors on entrepreneurial activities, which are affected by the configuration effects of multiple factors; hence, it remains unclear whether entrepreneurial education can make graduates more efficient to started their own companies. To fill this gap in the literature, drawing on general systems theory and using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we take 1,87,914 undergraduate and junior college students from 1,231 colleges and universities in China as a sample to explore the relationships among the five conditions in the entrepreneurship education environment and cognitive level (i.e., the quality of staff, subject curriculum, entrepreneurial competition, intentions, and opportunity identifications) and entrepreneurial activities. The fsQCA results show that none of these factors are sufficient for entrepreneurial activity. In contrast, three combinations of the five conditions (i.e., co-creation type, competition-oriented environment, and entrepreneurship education that fits under the guidance of entrepreneurial intention) can produce high entrepreneurial activity, as well as substitution and complementarity among the various elements within the configuration. These results show that the combined effect of the five conditions is more conducive to the entrepreneurial activities of college students. Finally, after a discussion of the study's findings, theoretical, and practical contributions are analyzed with regard to the field of entrepreneurship in Chinese colleges, and alternative options indicate that college students are more likely to become entrepreneurs in the future.

Research shows that entrepreneurial activities significantly promote economic development, which enhances the importance of the innovative entrepreneurial potential of college students. This study analyzes the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention from the perspective of planned behavior theory. By examining the significant role of entrepreneurship education at colleges and universities on economic and social development, we established a conceptual model. To understand the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention, the hypotheses propose the intermediary role of entrepreneurial ability, and the study provides evidence from China the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention. Improving entrepreneurial intention and encouraging college students to establish businesses through entrepreneurship education in universities is crucial. This study proposes a hypothetical model of the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial intention in entrepreneurship education at universities. Using a questionnaire survey of college students with practical experience in the Yangtze River Delta of China, the bootstrap method in the SPSS macro program process software verifies the hypotheses. The results show that entrepreneurial teaching, business plan competition, and entrepreneurial practice support positively affect entrepreneurial competence. In addition, entrepreneurial competence plays an intermediary role in the relationship between entrepreneurial teaching, business plan competition, entrepreneurship practice support, and entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurship education improves the ability to establish a business in the present and in entrepreneurial activities in the future. Entrepreneurial competence obtained through entrepreneurship education continuously affects entrepreneurial intention.

Entrepreneurship is a sustainable development tool that supports the alleviation of poverty and unemployment. Focusing on the promotion of entrepreneurial intention (EI) under the background of entrepreneurship education (EE), this study used a structural equation model to examine the role of entrepreneurship policy (EPo), entrepreneurial practice (EPr), and entrepreneurial spirit (ES) on the EI of 384 college students from 22 universities in Guangdong Province. The test results show that there are significant positive correlations between EPo and EI; EPo and EPr; EPo and ES; and EPr and EI. They also support the hypothesis that EPr enhances the positive effect that EPo has on EI. This study puts forth measures to improve EI and makes contributions to future research on EE.

To improve the quality of entrepreneurship education, this study explored factors linked to teachers’ competencies in entrepreneurship education in China. A regression analysis based on 12,596 teachers’ questionnaires showed that the competencies of teachers in entrepreneurship education had three dimensions. The factors linked to teacher’s competencies were professional training, new modes of teaching, entrepreneurial practice, entrepreneurial culture, and policy guarantee. At the same time, the influence mechanism between teachers’ overall competency and factors is explored. For a higher quality of entrepreneurship education, it is necessary to adopt new modes of teaching, pay attention to teachers’ careers, and improve the evaluation and recruitment mechanism for teachers. Our findings provide novel insights by exploring factors linked to teachers’ competencies, extending understanding on improving the quality of entrepreneurship education, and enriching the entrepreneurship education literature by adding new empirical evidence from China.

Entrepreneurship education plays an important role in sustainable development. Chinese governmental agencies are making all-out efforts to promote schoolwide entrepreneurship education from top to bottom to achieve sustainable economic and social development. This is a phenomenon worth studying and summarizing. Improving the satisfaction degree of teachers and students of entrepreneurship education in universities for sustainable development becomes a typical mode of entrepreneurship education in Chinese universities. The data are derived from 12,269 valid questionnaires in student volume and 1,241 valid questionnaires in teacher volume from top universities in China, and regression and variance analyses were applied. The results show that the overall satisfaction of teachers and students is higher than the national average. There are significant differences in the overall satisfaction of different types of teachers and students. Teachers are most satisfied with the organizational leadership measures of the universities in entrepreneurship education and least satisfied with the lack of professional human resource management strategies for entrepreneurship education teachers. Students are most satisfied with entrepreneurship policy and least satisfied with entrepreneurship learning, especially that entrepreneurship theory learning and practice learning are closely combined with students’ majors. The overall satisfaction of students of entrepreneurship education mainly comes from the influence of “entrepreneurship policy dividend,” entrepreneurship learning, and entrepreneurship competition and entrepreneurship practice, which go hand in hand. The overall satisfaction of teachers is most affected by the satisfaction of organizational leadership, followed by the satisfaction of mechanism guarantee and teaching management. This study introduces the sustainable development model of entrepreneurship education in top Chinese universities through the improvement of satisfaction of entrepreneurship education and has certain reference significance for managers and teachers of entrepreneurship education practice in other developing countries.

To determine how the success rate of college students’ entrepreneurship can be improved, we sought to identify the support needs of undergraduate entrepreneurs and evaluate the importance of different support needs using data from face-to-face interviews with 138 Chinese college student entrepreneurs. Further, we explored the distribution tendencies of the support needs at different entrepreneurial stages. We found that the support needs of college student entrepreneurs can be divided into 20 types, which can be categorized into core support needs (six types), secondary support needs (six types), and marginal support needs (eight types) in descending order of importance. A cross-stage analysis indicates that the support needs differ during the different entrepreneurial stages. While the needs during the entrepreneurial preparation stage and the startup stage have many similarities, those during the entrepreneurial failure stage are significantly different from those of the other three stages examined, showing heterogeneity. In addition, we identified psychological counseling as an important core support need in the failure stage and demonstrate its critical role in helping college students out of the shadow of entrepreneurial failure. This study expands the research on entrepreneurial support needs. Its findings provide valuable information to help colleges and governments develop more targeted and appropriate support for college entrepreneurs based on entrepreneurial stages to promote entrepreneurial success.

Purpose: With the development of the digital economy, digital entrepreneurship has become increasingly popular. For college students preparing for digital entrepreneurship, it is necessary to cope with the uncertainty of the start-up process through meaningful managing learning and continuous entrepreneurship education. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Chinese college students' digital entrepreneurship intention and digital entrepreneurship behavior, as well as the role of managing learning and entrepreneurship education in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the existing literature, this study established the digital entrepreneurship hypothesis model and investigated the digital entrepreneurship behavior of college students. Findings: The results showed that managing learning and entrepreneurship education can promote the transformation of the digital entrepreneurship intention to digital entrepreneurship behavior. Managing learning and entrepreneurship education played a driving role in the transformation of the digital entrepreneurship intention to digital entrepreneurship behavior. Originality/value: This study explored the complex mechanism of the relationship between digital entrepreneurship intention and digital entrepreneurship behavior among Chinese college students. Based on survey data from 235 college students in China, the empirical results supported theoretical research hypotheses on the relationship between college students and digital entrepreneurship intention, digital entrepreneurship behavior, managing learning and entrepreneurship education.