Building entrepreneurial infrastructure: Discursive strategies and the development of China's venture financing system

While entrepreneurial infrastructure (EI)—the resources and institutions supporting entrepreneurial activity—has received attention by both scholars and policymakers, less attention has been directed to understanding how the EI systems that generate those resources develop. To address this gap, we propose an extension of existing conceptual entrepreneurial ecosystem frameworks to include the EI systems of actors and institutions that generate those resources, applying it to the case of China's venture financing system that emerged and developed over 40 years. Based on our findings, we propose a discourse-driven process model of system change that included both policymaking and industry activity. First was policymaking, characterized by a tentative governance mode, with co-creation by policymakers and non-government actors leading to incremental changes in institutions (regulative, normative and cognitive) and, in turn, how new institutions created, allowed or legitimated new actors, or delegitimated others, over time. Second was industry activity by which new norms, beliefs and actors emerged as a result of non-government stakeholders (e.g., investors, venture capital firms, startups, stock exchanges) undertaking activities in pursuit of their organizational interests. Discourse and discursive strategies, including framing, theorizing, lobbying, convening, promulgating and demonstrating, among and between policymakers and non-government actors play a central role in the change process. We also show how these processes were affected by prior developments in the venture financing system, as well as national and international macroenvironmental factors. The findings have implications for entrepreneurial ecosystem and infrastructure research, as well as for policymakers wishing to develop and improve the infrastructure supporting new venture creation.