Chen Geng

Date of Award

2022

Advisor(s)

Zhang Xiaobo

Abstract

Enterprises play an important role in the development of society, economy, and sci-tech innovation, especially the technology enterprises, the way of organization and production has changed dramatically, relying on highly qualified personnel to promote technology innovation and human progress through intellectual creation. That makes enterprise a pivotal carrier of social relations transition. It is impossible to depend on formal systems entirely for enterprises managing business and technological activities because of the uncertainty existing in development and innovation. Enterprises need various tangible and intangible resources relying on social networks.

The alumni social networks are essential for promoting the innovation of technology enterprises. The homogeneous characteristics of network resources make it easy to form primary trust and effective communication, and the heterogeneous characteristics bring enterprises information and resources. After four decades of rapid economic development in China, “Innovation-driven” has become a major strategy for the country's future. “Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation” initiated in 2015 and “Notice on Supporting the High-quality Development of Specialized and Sophisticated Enterprises that Produce New and Unique Products” jointly issued by state ministries and commissions in January 2021 have fully stimulated the vitality and development momentum of technology enterprises. Studying the role of alumni social networks in the development of technology enterprises is of great practical significance for the high-quality development of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as the advancement of sci-tech innovation level in China.

This dissertation focuses the social networks of alumni relations, analyses its effect in the creation and development of enterprises, especially technology enterprises. The author attempts to show that alumni relations exist in enterprises with multiple forms, and play a role in the internal non-institutional complement and external resources supply.

Data used in this dissertation mainly comes from a survey nation-wide in the branches of Peking University Science Park and the cities where they locate. Questionnaires were sent to people in different positions of various kind of enterprises (see Appendix 4 for questionnaire design), and 1383 valid returned. Basic information of enterprises and the respondents’ views on alumni relations are inquired in questionnaire. Furthermore, founders were asked about the role of social networks in the establishment of enterprises, and for the founders and senior managers come the questions about importance of social networks in business and management.

There are five major parts in his dissertation. Firstly, compare the similarities and differences of perceptions about alumni social networks, based on the survey of staff from different ranks in technology enterprises; Secondly, Analyze the dependence of technology enterprise founders on alumni social networks during enterprise establishment and development, and make contrast with traditional enterprise founders additionally; Thirdly, explore whether there are any differences in the dependence on alumni relations between different stages of enterprise development; Then, by zooming in founders participated MBAs (including EMBAs), examining whether they actively build and capitalize the alumni connections and the corresponding impact; Finally, present a few cases offering insight on the various roles of alumni relations on enterprise establishment and development.

The main findings of the dissertation are as follows: Alumni relations do play a role in enterprise development. The higher the position of respondents, the more they admire the value of alumni relations in high-tech enterprises. Alumni relations have a positive impact on enterprise innovation. Compared with traditional enterprises, the founders of technology enterprises are more likely to seek alumni as partners when starting enterprises. They tend to recognize positive effect of alumni relations in internal communication, technological research and development and offering advice. And also have more initiative to participate in various alumni activities. Alumni are more usual among their company's internal staff and external partners. There is a higher density of research and education institutions around the company's location. It also shows the positive effect of alumni relations for enterprise development while many founders and senior managers are willing to pursue for MBAs (including EMBA).

The main marginal contributions of the dissertation are as follows: Combined with public data and phenomena observation, the research was carried out based on the primary data from questionnaire survey, interview, and case analysis etc. Firstly, the dissertation analyzes the perception of staff from different ranks in technology enterprises towards alumni relations, while most of previous literature is about alumni relations impact on corporate performance innovation among executives of large or even listed companies. Secondly, the dissertation examine a wider range of impact of alumni relations on enterprise establishment, management, growth and valuation, which has been little addressed in previous literature. Thirdly, the heterogeneous effect of alumni relations on traditional and technology enterprises is analyzed. The impact on the innovative development of technology enterprises relying on different types of dynamic social networks is also explored.

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