2.1. Disclosure of Entrepreneurial Qualification Information and the Function of Social Network Interactions
Research on the social network behaviors of entrepreneurs has always been a hot issue in entrepreneurship research; in particular, whether entrepreneurs in agriculture can preferably utilize their social network resources appropriately is important to entrepreneurship performance [
2,
3]. During the establishment and improvement of social networks by entrepreneurial leaders in the initial entrepreneurship stage, two kinds of social network behaviors may be seen by leaders and their social network members: the disclosure of qualification information and social network interaction. The disclosure of qualification information refers to the process of entrepreneurs initially disclosing their own qualifications and experience to establish their legitimacy and obtain the trust of network members [
6]. Social network interaction refers to entrepreneurs actively carrying out information communication and feedback with social network members to improve the degree of embeddedness of their social networks [
7]. The entrepreneurship performance brought by the aforesaid social network behaviors, such as legal information disclosure and social interaction, is of great importance in carrying out theoretical research and providing practical suggestions [
4].
In the project, team members with past experience can help solve problems and challenges in the new project, and skills, knowledge, and a master’s degree will positively impact the results of financing (Huckman et al., 2011) [
8]. In the past, some scholars, from the perspective of signal theory, considered that entrepreneurial leader education, experience, and other information disclosure behaviors that can affect the capability assessment of potential investors can help leaders effectively establish their own entrepreneurship legitimacy and obtain the trust of other social network members [
6]. Also, some scholars, from the perspective of social embeddedness theory, considered that social network interactions between entrepreneurial leaders and potential investors (e.g., social interactions, information communication, and information feedback) could help leaders establish and deepen the embeddedness between social network members [
7]. Some scholars integrated either corporate social entrepreneurship or corporate entrepreneurship through corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities into their business models, and found a positive association between CSR and firm performance (Ştefan and Liliana, 2015) [
9].
Generally, entrepreneurial leaders are simultaneously engaged in legal information disclosure and interaction in the social network communication process. Especially when facing potential investors, entrepreneurs are always confronted with the choice of two feasible social network strategies: to disclose the entrepreneurship-related qualification information of entrepreneurial leaders to investors as much as possible so as to establish their legitimacy in the minds of potential investors, or to disclose project progress and answer entrepreneurship-related questions of investors as much as possible via continuous social network interactions so as to strengthen the social network embeddedness and thereby obtain the trust of investors [
10]. For venture projects in different industries, technical conditions, and social network conditions, the two kinds of social network behaviors have different functions. However, the existing academic research has not distinguished the differentiated effects of such social network behaviors on entrepreneurial leaders in different industries. The technology and product demands of entrepreneurs in agriculture are different from those of other industries. For example, scholars have analyzed the emerging entrepreneurial practices of family farms in Morocco, and have underlined the important role of a new generation of farmers in the emergence of entrepreneurial forms of agriculture [
11]. However, the differentiated functions generated by such social network behaviors are not clearly revealed, and there are still certain “black-box” theories; therefore, a more in-depth analysis and exploration shall be carried out by utilizing theoretical and empirical research.
It is widely acknowledged that next to sound craftsmanship and management, farmers increasingly need entrepreneurship if they are to survive in modern agriculture, and there are three major factors driving farmers’ entrepreneurial learning: redeveloping an entrepreneurial identity, crossing the boundaries of agriculture, and opening up the family farm (Pieter et al., 2013) [
12]. In terms of social network behaviors in different industries, entrepreneurial leaders in agriculture always have a lower entrepreneurship threshold and more standardized product requirements, and it is difficult to quantify and present their entrepreneurial capability in agriculture with various types of qualification information. Whether entrepreneurship is successful or not is slightly related to qualification information, but it is highly related to entrepreneurial intention and the down-to-earth operation and accumulation in specific entrepreneurial processes. Some scholars have examined the interaction of two major themes in the restructuring process of European agriculture: the multifunctionality of agriculture and farmer entrepreneurship. The results describe a range of skills among farmers displaying a complex interaction between personal characteristics, enterprise type, and local socioeconomic and institutional conditions (Selyf et al., 2010) [
13]. Cláudia and Mário (2018), through a case study of traditional black-eyed bean producers in a village in inland central Portugal, found that the interorganizational networks of agricultural entrepreneurs have played a fundamental role in developing this activity through horizontal, vertical, and collaborative networks with third parties [
14]. For the disclosure of qualification information, such as the patent level of venture project products and the educational level and entrepreneurial experience of leaders, compared with venture projects in other industries, the legitimacy establishment effect for potential investors of venture projects in agriculture is lower, and potential investors are less sensitive to social network behaviors such as qualification information disclosure [
15]. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed in this paper:
Hypothesis 1. The effect of the qualification information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance in agriculture is lower than that in other industries.
Hypothesis 2. The effect of the patent information disclosure of venture projects on entrepreneurship financing performance is lower than that in other industries.
Hypothesis 3. The effect of the educational level information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance in agriculture is lower than that in other industries.
Hypothesis 4. The effect of the entrepreneurial experience information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders in agriculture on entrepreneurship financing performance is lower than that in other industries.
Moreover, based on social embeddedness theory and alluding to low technology level and a low standardized product, entrepreneurial leaders always select more social embeddedness and improve the relationship between social network members and entrepreneurial leaders through social network interaction [
16]. According to research by Sun et al. (2015) [
17] and by Colombo, Franzoni, and Rossi-Lamastra (2015) [
18], the social network interactions of entrepreneurial leaders in agriculture, such as disclosing and updating information on venture project progress and answering questions proposed by potential investors, further helps them become integrated into potential investors’ social networks, improves their social embeddedness level, and preferably mobilizes the social network to improve financing performance. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed in this paper:
Hypothesis 5. The effect of the social network interaction of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance in agriculture is higher than that in other industries.
Hypothesis 6. The effect of the project progress feedback of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance in agriculture is higher than that in other industries.
Hypothesis 7. The effects of project consultation and the answers of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance in agriculture are higher than those in other industries.
2.2. Regulating Effect of Entrepreneur Team Size
Diversity of team culture is considered to be the collection of individual characteristics of team members based on their cultural characteristics (Joshi and Roh, 2009) [
19]. Different types of cultural diversity influence the performance of entrepreneurs, such as gender diversity or demographic and ethnic diversity on the basis of the nationality of members of international diversity, and entrepreneurial member qualifications related to cultural diversity, such as diversity of knowledge and experience (Kearney, Gebert, and Voelpel, 2009) [
20]. From the perspective of entrepreneurs’ social network behaviors, team size always significantly facilitates the effectiveness of social network behaviors; meanwhile, improvement in team size always means a declining heterogeneous effect brought by qualification conditions and the social behaviors of individual entrepreneurs in different industries and venture projects [
21]. In other words, improving the size and personnel diversity of entrepreneurial teams and the standardization of internal and external working processes will reduce the differentiated entrepreneurship advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, in entrepreneurship research, team size always reflects the intention of entrepreneurs; compared with a small entrepreneurial team, a large team will require higher costs for establishment and maintenance, and have a stronger capability and comprehensive quality that is necessary for entrepreneurship [
22]. According to the above discussion, entrepreneurship in agriculture is less standardized and more difficult to quantify compared with other fields, and it pays more attention to the down-to-earth attitude and strong operation capability in specific entrepreneurial processes. Moreover, a large entrepreneurial team size shows strong entrepreneurial intention and incentive to investors, is more diversified in educational background, experience, etc., and can attract more high-quality talents. Therefore, a large entrepreneurial team size contributes to making up insufficiencies in the qualification information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders in agriculture, and strengthens the signal function of qualification information disclosure in the minds of investors, thereby making up the differences in the entrepreneurship performance improvement effect of the information disclosure of agricultural entrepreneurs compared with other industries [
23]. The following hypotheses are proposed in this paper based on the aforesaid aspects:
Hypothesis 8. Expanding the entrepreneurial team size in agriculture can reduce the difference in the effect of the qualification information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance compared with other industries.
Hypothesis 9. Expanding the entrepreneurial team size in agriculture can reduce the difference in the effect of the patent information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance compared with other industries.
Hypothesis 10. Expanding the entrepreneurial team size in agriculture can reduce the difference in the effect of the educational level information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance compared with other industries.
Hypothesis 11. Expanding the entrepreneurial team size in agriculture can reduce the difference in the effect of the entrepreneurial experience information disclosure of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance compared with other industries.
Meanwhile, along with the growth in team size and team members, the team also becomes more diversified [
24]; moreover, human resources that are used for social network interactions will increase for both entrepreneurs of agricultural projects and those in other industries. Based on the demographic characteristics of entrepreneurial teams, cultural diversity can encourage teams to use more international and multicultural features of technology innovation or design change, establish a more effective decision-making mechanism, promote the production of a high-quality strategy, and meet the different cultural characteristics of the investment demands of investors (Cox, 1994) [
25]. An increase in the manpower input in special customer relationships means the normalization of social network interactions between venture projects and potential investors, so the social network interactions of individual entrepreneurs will be gradually replaced by the social interactions of entrepreneurial teams and companies, and the advantages of individual social network interactions of agricultural projects will also decline. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed in this paper based on the aforesaid aspects:
Hypothesis 12. Expanding the entrepreneurial team size in agriculture can reduce the difference in the effect of the social network interaction of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance compared with other industries.
Hypothesis 13. Expanding the entrepreneurial team size in agriculture can reduce the difference in the effect of the project progress feedback of entrepreneurial leaders on entrepreneurship financing performance compared with other industries.
Hypothesis 14. Expanding the entrepreneurial team size in agriculture can reduce the difference in the effect of project consultation and the answers of entrepreneurial leaders in entrepreneurship financing performance compared with other industries.
Table 1 summarizes the findings for each hypothesis.