The Impact of Entrepreneurial Competence on Entrepreneurial Performance of Family Farms: A Comprehensive Research Framework of “Competence – Legitimacy

Abstract

In China, the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy provides a broad stage for migrant workers to return home to start their own businesses. This study constructs a research framework of “competence – legitimacy – performance.” Through online and offline surveys, this study obtained 477 valid samples from new family farm entrepreneurs in Fujian province of China. By using structural equation model, this study explores the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. The empirical analysis results show that all the five dimensions of family farm entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial competence, namely, opportunity recognition competence, network competence, resource acquisition competence, entrepreneurial learning competence, and improvisational competence have positive impacts on family farm entrepreneurial performance. And organizational legitimacy also has a positive impact on family farm entrepreneurial performance. In addition, the mediating effect of organizational legitimacy in opportunity recognition competence, network competence, resource acquisition competence, entrepreneurial learning competence, and family farm entrepreneurial performance are supported by data. However, organizational legitimacy does not play a significant mediating role in the relationship between improvisational competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. The research findings provide some enlightenment and reflections to family farm entrepreneurs and policy-makers.

Keywords

entrepreneurial competence entrepreneurial performance organizational legitimacy family farms rural revitalization

Introduction

In recent years, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy and rural entrepreneurship, which has led to the start-up and development of a large number of new agricultural business entities. Of which, family farms are the most important organizations with great vitality, driving force, and development potential (Duan et al., 2021; Su et al., 2020). Research has shown that the rapid development of family farms is playing a very important role in improving agricultural production efficiency, driving farmers’ employment and raising their incomes, and realizing the modernization of agriculture (Yi & Duan, 2020). Therefore, how to improve the entrepreneurial performance of new family farms has become an urgent challenge.

Although scholars have also explored the mechanism of entrepreneurial performance from the individual factors of entrepreneurs, most of them have focused on the entrepreneurs’ education level (Wu, 2019), entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Su et al., 2018), and entrepreneurs’ prior experience (Wang & Tao, 2016). However, insufficient attention has been paid to the entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial competence from individual level. In recent years, entrepreneurs individual competence is recognized an important antecedent factor affecting entrepreneurial performance (Huang et al., 2023). Research has shown that the launching, growth and success of new ventures are closely related to entrepreneurs’ competence. Compared with common farmers or peasants, family farmers have the distinctive feature of entrepreneurial management (Yi et al., 2018). Newly created family farms have many shortcomings, such as lack of management experience, resource constraints, lack of organizational legitimacy, and inadequate rules and regulations, which will restrict the development of start-up family farms. Hence, how new family farmers utilize their entrepreneurial abilities to overcome difficulties, increase stakeholders’ recognition of newly created family farms, and achieve better entrepreneurial performance has become a hot topic among academics and entrepreneurial practitioners nowadays. Therefore, understanding how entrepreneurial competence influence the performance of family farms is worthy of further exploration. However, previous studies have not yet reached a consensus on connotation definition and dimensions of individual entrepreneurial competence is fairly general, and there are fewer studies on the specific path of entrepreneurial competence’s effect on entrepreneurial performance.

Institutional theory suggests that in order to maintain competitive advantage and achieve performance improvement, enterprises need to gain organizational legitimacy while maintaining efficiency (Li et al., 2014). The study of legitimacy originated in the field of sociology and is used to refer to the extent to which an organization’s behavior is recognized and accepted within a socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions (Li et al., 2019). Organizational legitimacy is a general perception of the organization’s behavior by stakeholders, which can help enterprises to gain access to valuable resources and enhance competitive advantages (Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002), and therefore receiving increasing attention from scholars.

Despite the fact that the number of family farm start-ups is increasing year by year, this particular model of agricultural operation is still far from being recognized or accepted by stakeholders within the organization, farmers, banks, leading agricultural enterprises, and customers (Yi & Duan, 2020). Family farms with a higher degree of legitimacy indicate that they are more credible and valuable, and therefore are more likely to gain supports from stakeholders (Li et al., 2019). In this sense, the way to increase the organizational legitimacy of newly created family farms is a problem that entrepreneurs have to face. Although more and more scholars and entrepreneurs have realized the importance of organizational legitimacy, the factors influencing organizational legitimacy and the role it plays in the achievement of entrepreneurial performance are still seldom mentioned (Ma et al., 2018). To a certain extent, the process of shaping and enhancing organizational practices and legitimacy of newly created family farms is also essentially the process of whether farmers’ entrepreneurial competence is effective in achieving social acceptance and economic benefits for the business they create. Thus, we argue that entrepreneurial competence may be an important factor to increase the organizational legitimacy of family farms, which will lead to better entrepreneurial performance. That is to say, organizational legitimacy may play a mediating role between entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial performance of family farms.

Based on the above analysis, this paper construct a research model of “competence – legitimacy – performance.” This paper aims to excavate the entrepreneurial motivation factors of farmers to stimulate greater entrepreneurial vitality, which is not only helpful to make up for the inadequacy of the research on entrepreneurship in family farms but also helpful to provide more effective theoretical references and policies for the entrepreneurs of family farms and the governmental departments. To achieve the goals that have been mentioned above, we organize the rest of research as follows. First, we develop the hypothesis regarding the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and family farms’ entrepreneurial performance, including the mediating effect organizational legitimacy. Then, we describe our methodology, analytical strategy, and results. Next, a detailed discussion of the key findings is presented. Finally, we conclude with the theoretical and managerial implications, as along with research limitations and future research directions.

Literature Review and Development of Hypotheses

Entrepreneurial Competence and Entrepreneurial Performance of Family Farms

Entrepreneurial competence describes the ability of an individual or organization to accomplish a new task or create something new (Cai et al., 2014), which is a key characteristic for achieving entrepreneurial performance and success. In the early stages of family farm growth, when the organizational structure is not yet well developed, family farmers often have to take over almost all the work. They are the most critical decision makers, and their entrepreneurial competence is highly valued as a key factor explaining the differences in entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, this study focuses on the entrepreneurial competence of family farmers at the individual level.

However, this paper finds that existing research haven’t reached a consensus on the connotation of entrepreneurial competence, resulting in a lack of persuasive research conclusions. The ambiguous conceptual system of entrepreneurial competence has become a great obstacle to the further empirical research. Moreover, most scholars focus on entrepreneurial competence from a single perspective, which has obvious limitations in revealing the comprehensive dimensions of entrepreneurial competence. Integrating the perspectives of existing literature and based on the key entrepreneurial tasks undertaken by entrepreneurs, this paper believes that entrepreneurial competencies mainly consists of five aspects, namely, opportunity recognition competence, network competence, resource acquisition competence, entrepreneurial learning competence, and improvisational competence. In the following sections, this paper will develop logical relationships between these five competencies and entrepreneurial performance.

Opportunity Recognition Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

According to the theory of entrepreneurial process, business opportunities in the environment are ubiquitous but can be fleeting. Opportunity identification and evaluation is a critical starting point for entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurial process always begins with the identification of potential business ideas (Yi et al., 2024), followed by a step-by-step exploration to further develop the ideas into new products, services, or processes that can bring benefits to the organization (Guo et al., 2019; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Therefore, opportunities, which usually have the potential to be profitable, are key elements for organizations to gain competitive advantage and have a significant impact on entrepreneurial performance (Chen et al., 2020; Liu, 2017; Pindado & Sánchez, 2019). Opportunity identification helps farmers to systematically plan their entrepreneurial activities and contributes to the generation, organization, and understanding of information and knowledge in various fields to improve performance and find new opportunities.

First, family farmers with a better ability of entrepreneurial opportunity identification have multiple channels of knowledge acquisition, and are able to screen valuable information from external resources in a timely manner. Second, family farm entrepreneurs are able to quickly digest and absorb the new information, and explore new agricultural technologies or new markets, which can help them to improve or innovatively develop their existing products and increase the value of their products. Finally, stronger opportunity recognition implies that family farm entrepreneurs have a larger stock of knowledge or multiple innovative solutions, which enable them to respond quickly to consumer value demands and ensure a sustainable increase in entrepreneurial performance. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H1: Opportunity recognition competence positively affects family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Network Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Network competence is a strategic ability of a start-up organization to network, and is a critical factor in achieving a favorable network position and accessing key resources for innovation in a complex network environment (Li et al., 2020). Network relationship is an important source of social capital acquisition for entrepreneurs. Most of the start-ups fail at the initial stage due to lack of adequate resources and capabilities (Anwar et al., 2018). Improvement in start-up performance strongly relies on the entrepreneur’s network connections to access resources (Lin & Lin, 2016; Luo & Huang, 2022). Srećković (2018) even suggests that for startups, entrepreneurs’ network competence contribute more to organizational competitiveness and entrepreneurial performance than managerial capabilities.

Network development competence reflects the ability of farm entrepreneurs to utilize relational skills to connect with other network members. In addition, stronger network competence means that family farm entrepreneurs are better able to create an atmosphere of cooperation and trust, and are good at utilizing their communication skills or portfolio management skills (Ren & Shu, 2014). Then they will be able to access a wealth of quality resources to guide them in positioning and evaluating opportunities, increase their sensitivity to market needs and issues, and thus improve their entrepreneurial performance. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H2: Network competence positively affects family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Resource Acquisition Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

The resource-based view (RBV) posits that heterogeneity in market positions result from heterogeneity in firms’ resources (rare, valuable, inimitable, and non-substitutable resources, VRIN resources; Barney, 1991). In practice, however, new family farmers generally face a “dilemma” in accessing resources. On the one hand, start-up family farms have very limited resources of their own, and the “new entrant disadvantage” means that they do not have the ability to create resources on their own. On the other hand, due to the lack of market transaction records and asymmetric information problems, new family farms are unable to successfully obtain resource support from external forces.

Family farmers need to continuously acquire resources such as land, capital, instruments and equipment, and human resources from external networks to secure their daily production and operation. It is an accelerator for newly created family farms to achieve competitive advantage, which helps family farms to accurately predict and respond to dynamic changes in the market environment, carry out appropriate innovative activities, and enhance the added value of agricultural products or services, so as to expand their sales share and performance. In summary, family farm entrepreneurs with better resource acquisition competence are more likely to increase entrepreneurial performance and sustainability. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H3: Resource acquisition competence positively affects family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Entrepreneurial Learning Competencies and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

The entrepreneurial process is also essentially a continuous learning process, which has strong explanatory power for entrepreneurial performance (Zhang & Pei, 2018), as it is able to explain entrepreneurial issue from a dynamic perspective. The inherent uncertainty and complexity of entrepreneurial activity implies that entrepreneurs cannot be confident that they have the knowledge and competencies required to accomplish their goals, and therefore must engage in continuous entrepreneurial learning (Markowska & Wiklund, 2020). Entrepreneurial learning is mainly categorized into exploratory entrepreneurial learning and exploitative entrepreneurial learning (March, 1991).

Start-up family farms not only have to cope with the problems that may affect their survival, but also have to face the problems that may affect their sustainable growth at different stages in the future. On the one hand, it requires family farm entrepreneurs to engage in exploitative entrepreneurial learning. This means that they should not only adjust and optimize their current operational models based on the various entrepreneurial knowledge and information they have acquired, but also should continuously explore and innovate new business models and management approaches to adapt to the evolving market demands and competitive landscape. On the other hand, entrepreneurs also need exploratory entrepreneurial learning, that is, they should also continuously explore and develop new entrepreneurial knowledge and information, continuously seek new opportunities to prepare for the future entrepreneurial growth. Entrepreneurial learning goes along with almost all practical aspects of entrepreneurship. Based on this, this study argues that efficient entrepreneurial learning is an important factor in identifying entrepreneurial opportunities and resources for family farm entrepreneurs who are information-obstructed or with low educational levels, which can enhance their prediction and control of entrepreneurial risks, break through their own capacity constraints, and seize business opportunities that in turn affect their final entrepreneurial performance (Tong et al., 2022). Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H4: Entrepreneurial learning ability positively affects family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Improvisational Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Gartner and Timmons’ model of the entrepreneurial process shows that the entrepreneurial environment presents ambiguity and uncertainty. This means that entrepreneurs need to use improvisational capacity to solve problems at any time. Contingency theory also suggests that the environment is the most direct influence in the process of business operation and transformation, and managers need to strengthen contingency thinking. In essence, the process of entrepreneurship is also a continuous decision-making process. In the process of entrepreneurship and development of family farms, it is inevitable that they will encounter some emergencies and difficult problems because of the uncertainty of the environment, asymmetric information and insufficient resources (Tong et al., 2022). It is difficult to solve the problem by acting according to the organizational practices and pre-made plans, so it is necessary for entrepreneurs to come up with novel solutions to solve these problems skillfully even if they rely on their intuition and insights. Thus, improvisational competence plays a crucial role in seizing opportunities and resolving crises in dynamic environments for start-up family farms.

Entrepreneurs with a high level of improvisational competence are able to quickly recognize what resources they have at hand (Su & Du, 2022). As a result, they are more adept at quickly improvising, using existing resources or reorganizing them for new purposes in order to escape from the dilemma of resource constraints. Adomako et al. (2018) also confirmed that the use of improvisation skills helps to cope with managerial changes and implement effective behavioral strategies in the context of inadequate institutional structures and constrained resource environments, which in turn enhances the performance of start-ups through the effective use of available resources. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H5: Improvisational competence positively affects family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Organizational Legitimacy and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Legitimacy refers to a process that an organization obtains a certain defined position in the environment (Liang & Wang, 2023). Organizational legitimacy can increase the recognition of stakeholders to the newly created organization, improve the credibility and reliability of the organization, and reduce the transaction costs (Xu et al., 2024). The enhancement of organizational legitimacy helps to improve competitiveness and achieve the survival and long-term development of the enterprise (Wang et al., 2023). In addition, organizational legitimacy is an important embodiment of the newly created organization to improve the ability to obtain internal and external resources (Zhang & Kong, 2018). In accordance with Guo et al.’s (2019), this paper divides organizational legitimacy of family farms into two dimensions, that is, political legitimacy and market legitimacy. Of which, political legitimacy refers to the fact that the internal management system of the family realizes the requirements of the characteristics set by the government, industry associations, and other related departments, and is recognized by the government light related departments. Market legitimacy refers to the fact that the entrepreneurial activities of the farm comply with the behavioral norms shared by market stakeholders and are recognized by various market players.

On the one hand, high political legitimacy provides stable institutional safeguards and policy support for the expansion of newly created family farms, which can help family farms better access market resources and establish industry norms, and then improve the efficiency and profitability of family farms in market expansion. On the other hand, high market legitimacy can promote newly created family farms to gain more stakeholder recognition (Zhang & Kong, 2018). With higher organizational legitimacy, family farm entrepreneurs can get closer cooperation with upstream agricultural suppliers and downstream sales channels, thus gaining value-added benefits and promoting the improvement of farm performance. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H6: Organizational legitimacy positively affects family farm entrepreneurial performance.

The Mediating Role of Organizational Legitimacy

The entrepreneurial process is essentially the process of acquiring and enhancing the organizational legitimacy (Tian & Yang, 2017), which is crucial for the survival of newly created family farms. However, in the early stages of business, family farms have not yet formed a sound organizational structure and effective operation and management system, and have not yet established their own reputation and brand, making it difficult for them to achieve good market performance at the initial stage. Therefore, the “new entry disadvantage” and the “legitimacy threshold” have become the main factors constraining the survival and development of newly established family farms. All these difficulties pose a great challenge to the entrepreneurs’ own capacities. Therefore, how to “survive” and “thrive” in the fierce competition requires entrepreneurs to have strong opportunity recognition competence and market information assessment ability. Entrepreneurs with stronger opportunity recognition competence can quickly explore existing or potential market demand, and strive to make their production and marketing to meet the expectations of the general public, to obtain the support and recognition of stakeholders, so as to improve entrepreneurial performance. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H7: Organizational legitimacy mediates the relationship between opportunity recognition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Compared to established farms, new farms entrepreneurs usually have difficulty in obtaining support from external resources, and thus social networks are extremely important in the startup and process of their new family farms. It has been shown that social networks help to enhance the legitimacy of a firm’s organization (Wang et al., 2017). Network competence can help newly created family farm owners build friendly connections with the outside world, and enhance stakeholders’ trust and resource support for farm entrepreneurs. Legitimacy spillover in network nodes helps to enhance the legitimacy of newly created family farms; the higher the authority or the better the reputational influence of the network relationship members, the more legitimacy spillover entrepreneurs can obtain from them, and the more competitive they can be in terms of resource acquisition and market expansion, the more likely they are to achieve higher-than-average entrepreneurial performance (Rui & Shi, 2018). Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H8: Organizational legitimacy mediates the relationship between network competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Entrepreneurial resource acquisition is also an important starting point for shaping organizational legitimacy. New family farmers with strong resource acquisition competence can not only obtain the necessary capital, equipment, advanced agricultural technology, and operation and management experience from their relationship network, but also learn simultaneously in the process of resource acquisition, so as to build a reasonable and effective operation and management framework for their family farms, strengthen formality and legitimacy, and keep up with their peers to obtain positive evaluations from stakeholders such as government departments, investors, and consumers. This will help to obtain positive evaluations from government departments, investors, consumers, and other stakeholders. Increased organizational legitimacy can help translate resource acquisition into positive word-of-mouth for the family farms, which can contribute to the expansion of their market share and improve their ability to survive and grow. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H9: Organizational legitimacy mediates the relationship between resource acquisition and family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Entrepreneurship is at the same time a process of continuous exploration and learning. The weak entrepreneurial learning competence of family farmers limits, to some extent, the shaping and enhancement of organizational legitimacy, which in turn can affect entrepreneurial performance. As latecomers, the organizational structure, operation and management systems, and production/service processes of newly created family farms often have large deficiencies, and thus will have a greater need for learning than other mature incumbent farms. Family farm entrepreneurs can learn from the successes or failures of other entrepreneurs, improve their own management level, and gradually construct a sound entrepreneurial knowledge system. By entrepreneurial learning, they can improve their own operational efficiency and speeding up their response to changes in the external market. At the same time, better entrepreneurial learning competence can also help family farm entrepreneurs accurately grasp the national policy guidance, so as to obtain more preferential policies, and continuously shape and strengthen the formality and legitimacy of the farm’s new township, and lead the development and growth of newly created family farms. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis.

H10: Organizational legitimacy mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial learning competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance.

In an uncertain business environment, legitimacy of family farms can make organizational activities repeatable and reliable. Such repeatability and reliability help family farms maintain a certain degree of stability, adding more controllable time for entrepreneurs to cope with market changes and reducing operational risks, thus maximizing the competitive advantage of family farms (Gao et al., 2017). However, newly created family farms, as newborns in the market, do not have such duplicity, reliability, and legitimacy. At the same time, research shows that organizational legitimacy is a process, which is gradually formed and continuously improved. It means that organizational practices and legitimacy are the result of continuous formation and gradual accumulation of enterprises in the entrepreneurial process. Changes in the external environment will force entrepreneurs to improvise and react. Improvisation implies “trial and error” to create knowledge. Through the learning, repeated institutionalization and standardization of new knowledge, family farms can gradually form higher organizational legitimacy, which contributes to the improvement of family farm entrepreneurial performance. Based on the above discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis (Figure 1).

H11: Organizational legitimacy mediates the relationship between improvisational competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance.

Figure 1.

Conceptual model of the study.

Methods

Sample and Procedures

Through a large-scale online and offline questionnaire survey, the sample was collected from family farm entrepreneurs in Fujian province of China. For online approach, we joined many communication groups specially for family farmers through WeChat apps and informed them of the purpose of distributing questionnaires, which gained support of the majority of family farmers. For offline approach, we distributed paper questionnaires at family farmer training classes in colleges and universities. A total of 579 questionnaires were collected. After excluding the samples of family farms established for more than 8 years and the samples with missing values and apparently random questionnaire responses, a total of 477 valid samples were obtained, with a validity rate of 82.38%.

Measures

The variables and corresponding survey items used in the questionnaire were based on previously published latent variables with psychometric properties that support their validity. All questionnaire items were measured on 5-point Likert scale where 1 for very dissatisfied and 5 for very satisfied.

Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Referring to the research of Zahra et al. (2011) and Yi et al. (2018), entrepreneurial performance of family farms is measured by seven questionnaire items from two dimension, that is, survival performance and growth performance. Example item is “in recent years, the farm’s sales have been growing.”

Entrepreneurial Competence

Farmer entrepreneurial competence include opportunity recognition competence, network competence, resource acquisition competence, entrepreneurial learning competence, and improvisational competence.

Opportunity identification competence have seven questionnaire items, which are mainly drawn from Chandler and Hanks (1994), Ma et al. (2011), Cai et al. (2014), and Xie and Wang (2017). Example item is “I can accurately sense unmet customer needs.”

For the measurement of network competence, this study refers to the measurement scales of Rui and Shi (2018), and Ren and Shu (2014), and integrates and revises them according to the reality of entrepreneurship in family farms. A total of seven questionnaire items are used for measurement. Network competence of entrepreneurs in this study contains two dimensions: network development competence and relationship management competence. Example items include “I was able to meet more family farmers through various networks.”

Drawing on Wiklund and Shepherd (2003) and Hou et al. (2018), resource acquisition competence are categorized into asset-based and knowledge-based resources. Example item include “I am good at obtaining information on family farm operation and management experience, sales channels, purchasing and agricultural technology.”

For the measurement of entrepreneurial learning competence, this study draws on Peng (2011), and Rui and Shi (2018) to categorize the entrepreneurial learning competence of family farmers into exploitative learning competence and exploratory learning competence, which were measured using seven questionnaires. Example item includes “I pay close attention to the behavior and practices of model family farms in the same industry.”

This study synthesized the findings of Vera and Crossan (2004), Hmieleski and Corbett (2006), and Ye and Mai (2018), agreeing that improvisational competence encompasses three dimensions: creativity, spontaneity, and resource bricolage. Seven question items were selected to be measured. Example item includes “I’m good at utilizing the resources at hand to achieve innovative approaches.”

Organizational Legitimacy

Drawing on Guo et al. (2019), this study divides organizational legitimacy into two categories: political legitimacy and market legitimacy, which were measured by six question items. Example item includes “our farm has been recognized by the government authorities.”

Control Variable

In order to improve the reliability of the findings, this study selected a number of factors as control variables in terms of both individual entrepreneurial traits and organizational-level characteristics of newly created family farms to minimize competing interpretations of the findings by these factors. The control variables for individual entrepreneurial traits include age, education, and years of employment before starting the business. For organizational characteristics, the number of years since the establishment of the family farm as well as its size were selected as control variables in this study.

Descriptive Statistics of the Sample

In this study, the characteristics of the 477 valid samples recovered were analyzed using descriptive statistics in SPSS 21.0 software, as shown in Table 1. In terms of gender, there were 385 male entrepreneurs (80.7%) and 92 female entrepreneurs (19.3%). It can be seen that family farm entrepreneurs are mainly male.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics.

Variable	Items	Frequency	Percentage
Gender	Male	385	80.70
Gender	Female	92	19.30
Age	18–25	17	3.60
	26–30	45	9.40
	31–40	160	33.50
	41–50	205	43.00
	51–60	43	9.00
	61 and older	7	1.50
Education level	Primary school or below	8	1.70
	Middle school	139	29.10
	High school	224	47.00
	Junior college	67	14.00
	Bachelor degree	39	8.20
Working experience	No	83	17.40
	1 year or less	41	8.60
	1–3 years	95	19.90
	3–5 years	71	14.90
	More than 5 years	187	39.20
Farm type	Planting	274	57.40
	Livestock farming	28	5.90
	Fishing	10	2.10
	Planting and breeding	135	28.30
	Others	30	6.30
Years of farm establishment	Less than 1 year	32	6.70
	1–3 years	90	18.90
	3–5 years	174	36.50
	5–8 years	181	37.90
Farm size	1–100 acres	153	32.10
	101–200 acres	116	24.30
	201–300 acres	75	15.70
	301–400 acres	44	9.20
	More than 400 acres	89	18.70

In terms of age, family farm entrepreneurs are predominantly between the ages of 31 and 50, accounting for 76.5%, while only 10.5% farm owners are over the age of 50, which is lower than the average age of China’s agricultural workforce.

Regarding the education level of the farmers, most of the family farm entrepreneurs have the education level of junior high school, high school, or secondary school, but the college education has reached 14.0%, and there are also 8.2% of bachelor’s degree. This may be because China has been vigorously promoting the tertiary education upgrading classes for farmers in recent years, and it also indicates that the overall education level of the family farm entrepreneurial group in Fujian province is gradually showing a high-end trend, which is important for improving entrepreneurial competence and promoting the success of family farm entrepreneurship.

Among the respondents, 82.6% of the family farm owner-entrepreneurs have had some working experience, and a large proportion of them have worked for more than 5 years. Only 17.4% of the farmers had no experience of working outside the home.

The industrial types of family farms in Fujian Province are more diversified, including planting, animal husbandry, fishery, and also family farms combining planting and breeding. Among them, 57.4% are planting type family farms, 5.9% are animal husbandry, 2.1% are fishery, 28.3% are combined planting and breeding type, and 6.3% are other types. It can be seen that most of the family farms in Fujian province are planting-type, while the number of family farms of the breeding-type, such as animal husbandry or fishery, is relatively small.

Regarding the number of years of establishment of family farms, the vast majority of family farms were founded within the last 5 years, which meets the requirements of the research object of this study.

As for the scale of family farms, there are 153 family farms of 1 to 100 acres, accounting for 32.1%; 116 family farms of 101 to 200 acres, accounting for 24.3%; 75 family farms of 201 to 300 acres, accounting for 15.7%; 44 family farms of 301 to 400 acres, accounting for 9.2%; and 89 family farms of 401 acres and above, accounting for 18.7%. Overall, Fujian province has the largest number of family farms with less than 100 acres, and the scale of operation is generally small.

Empirical Analysis and Results Discussion

Reliability and Validity Tests

First, this study conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) via AMOS 24.0 to calculate standardized factor loading for each question item in order to test the reliability. After calculation, the standardized factor loadings of the items opic7, resc1, and impc4 in the official questionnaire were 0.371, 0.307, and 0.405, which were lower than 0.5, and were therefore deleted.

Next, the study conducted another confirmatory factor analysis for the finalized 43 question items in order to test the item reliability, composite reliability, and average variance extracted (AVE) for each latent variable.

The standardized factor loadings, SMC, CR, and mean variance extracted measure AVE for the 43 questions are presented in Table 2. Most of the factor loading values for the question items reach the desired level of 0.7, except for three questions, namely, resc7, legt1, and pefm7, which were slightly below 0.6. The composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE), which reflect the intrinsic fit indices of the factors, are also listed in the table. The minimum CR value of the eight variables in this study is 0.813, which is greater than the general level of 0.70. Therefore, all seven latent variables involved in the structural model of this study have a good level of confidence (reliability). Average variance extracted (AVE) was used to test convergent validity (Hair, 2006). As can be seen from the results in Table 2, most of the constructs are greater than 0.50. AVE for organizational legitimacy is 0.471, which is slightly lower than 0.50 but greater than the threshold of 0.36, and therefore within the acceptable range, suggesting that the variables in this study have good convergent validity.

Table 2.

Reliability Analysis for the Formal Research Scale.

Construct	Item	Reliability of times		Composite reliability	Convergent validity
Construct	Item	Std.	SMC	CR	AVE
Opportunity recognition competence (OPIC)	opic1	0.733	0.537	0.912	0.635
	opic2	0.773	0.598
	opic3	0.818	0.669
	opic4	0.804	0.646
	opic5	0.825	0.681
	opic6	0.823	0.677
Network competence (NETC)	netc1	0.694	0.482	0.883	0.557
	netc2	0.692	0.479
	netc3	0.753	0.567
	netc4	0.769	0.591
	netc5	0.760	0.578
	netc6	0.805	0.648
Resource acquisition competence (RESC)	resc2	0.816	0.666	0.906	0.620
	resc3	0.848	0.719
	resc4	0.803	0.645
	resc5	0.822	0.676
	resc6	0.824	0.679
	resc7	0.578	0.334
Entrepreneurial learning competence (ENLC)	enlc1	0.752	0.566	0.908	0.584
	enlc2	0.778	0.605
	enlc3	0.779	0.607
	enlc4	0.756	0.572
	enlc5	0.752	0.566
	enlc6	0.754	0.569
	enlc7	0.778	0.605
Improvisational competence (IMPC)	impc1	0.796	0.634	0.931	0.694
	impc2	0.856	0.733
	impc3	0.842	0.709
	impc5	0.858	0.736
	impc6	0.854	0.729
	impc7	0.788	0.621
Organizational legitimacy (LEGT)	legt1	0.506	0.256	0.813	0.471
	legt2	0.734	0.539
	legt3	0.752	0.566
	legt4	0.756	0.572
	legt5	0.649	0.421
Family farm entrepreneurial performance (PEFM)	pefm1	0.648	0.420	0.883	0.522
	pefm2	0.745	0.555
	pefm3	0.825	0.681
	pefm4	0.835	0.697
	pefm5	0.656	0.430
	pefm6	0.729	0.531
	pefm7	0.581	0.338

Hair (2006) also point out that latent variables must also have discriminant validity, which is tested by comparing the root square of the AVE and correlation coefficient between the latent variables. The results in Table 3 show that the square roots of the AVEs of all latent variables are greater than the Pearson correlation coefficients of the corresponding latent variables, indicating that the variables in this study have good discriminant validity.

Table 3.

Validity Test.

Construct	Convergent validity	Discriminant validity
Construct	AVE	OPIC	NETC	RESC	ENLC	IMPC	LEGT	PEFM
OPIC	0.635	0.797
NETC	0.557	0.338**	0.746
RESC	0.620	0.292**	0.403**	0.787
ENLC	0.584	0.109*	0.227**	0.308**	0.764
IMPC	0.694	0.262**	0.406**	0.538**	0.414**	0.833
LEGT	0.471	0.340**	0.490**	0.446**	0.331**	0.343**	0.686
PEFM	0.522	0.332**	0.462**	0.691**	0.383**	0.574**	0.604**	0.722
Mean	–	3.099	3.648	3.677	3.734	3.879	3.698	3.776
SD	–	1.185	0.807	0.786	1.016	0.834	0.946	0.894

Note. The boldface in the table is the square root of AVE of the latent variable, and the lower triangle is the Pearson correlation coefficient between the latent variables. AVE = variance extracted value.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Hypothesis Test

Structural Model Fit Test

Through AMOS24.0 software, this study tests the model fit of the direct effects and indirect effect. The analysis results are shown in Figures 2 and 3 and Table 4.

Figure 2.

Results of structural model fit test for direct effects.

Figure 3.

Results of structural model fit test for indirect effects.

Table 4.

Structural Model Fit Criteria and Test Results.

Index	Criterion	Model fit indicators of direct effect	Model fit indicators of indirect effect	Results
χ²	The smaller, the better	1,077.374	1,342.150
df	The greater, the better	646	835
χ²/df	<3	1.668	1.607	Good
GFI	>0.9	0.895	0.886	Acceptable
AGFI	>0.9	0.879	0.870	Acceptable
CFI	>0.9	0.963	0.960	Good
TLI	>0.9	0.959	0.957	Good
RMSEA	<0.08	0.037	0.036	Good
SRMR	<0.08	0.039	0.041	Good

Source. Criterion from reference: Qiu and Lin (2009).

In Figure 2, the results of the direct effect structural model fit test show that χ²/df = 1.668, which meets the criterion of judgment of less than 3. In addition, CFI = 0.963, TLI = 0.959, which meets the criterion of judgment of greater than 0.9. GFI = 0.895, AGFI = 0.879, which are slightly less than 0.9, but also belongs to the acceptable range. Further, RMSEA = 0.037 and SRMR = 0.0389 meet the judgment criteria of less than 0.08.

Additionally, in Figure 3, the structural model fit test for indirect effects show that χ²/df = 1.607, which meets the judgment criteria of less than 3; CFI = 0.960, TLI = 0.957, which meets the judgment criteria of greater than 0.9, GFI is 0.886, AGFI = 0.870 are slightly less than 0.9 but also belongs to the acceptable range, and RMSEA = 0.036, SRMR = 0.041 meet the judgment criteria of less than 0.08. It can be seen that the structural model of this study has a good fit, so the basic theoretical model constructed in this study has rationality.

Results of Structural Modeling Analysis

Firstly, this study tests the direct effect of entrepreneurial competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. Then organizational legitimacy is added to test the relationship between organizational legitimacy and family farm entrepreneurial performance. Finally, the significance of the mediating effect of organizational legitimacy is analyzed using Bootstrap resampling technique.

(1) Test results of the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance

The results of the direct effect test of entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial performance of family farmers are shown in detail in Table 5.

Table 5.

Test Results of the Direct Effect of Entrepreneurial Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance.

Path	Standardized path coefficient	SE	C.R. (t-value)	p	Hypothesis	Test results
OPIC→PEFM	0.054	0.025	2.141	.032	H1	Support
NETC→PEFM	0.105	0.031	3.374	***	H2	Support
RESC→PEFM	0.523	0.064	8.173	***	H3	Support
ENLC→PEFM	0.129	0.041	3.101	.002	H4	Support
IMPC→PEFM	0.128	0.033	3.870	***	H5	Support

***

p < .001.

In the relationship between opportunity recognition competence and entrepreneurial performance of family farms, the standardized path coefficient β of the path “OPIC→PEFM” is .054, and the p value is .032 (<.05), indicating that opportunity recognition competence has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial performance of family farms, and hypothesis H1 is supported.

In the relationship between network competence and entrepreneurial performance of family farms, the standardized path coefficient β of the path “NETC→PEFM” is .105, with a p-value of less than .001, which indicates that network competence has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial performance of family farms, and hypothesis H2 is supported.

In the relationship between resource acquisition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance, the standardized path coefficient β of the path “RESC→PEFM” is .523, with a p-value of less than .001, which indicates that resource acquisition competence has a significant positive effect on family farm entrepreneurial performance, and hypothesis H3 is supported.

In the relationship between entrepreneurial learning competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance, the standardized path coefficient β of path ENLC→PEFM is .129 with a p-value of less than .01, which indicates that entrepreneurial learning competence has a significant positive effect on family farm entrepreneurial performance, and hypothesis H4 is supported.

In the relationship between improvisation competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance, the standardized path coefficient β of the path “IMPC→PEFM” is .128, with a p-value of less than .001, which indicates that improvisation competence has a significant positive effect on family farm entrepreneurial performance, and hypothesis H5 is supported.

(2) Test results of the relationship between organizational legitimacy and family farm entrepreneurial performance

In the relationship between organizational legitimacy and family farm entrepreneurial performance, the standardized path coefficient β of the path “LEGT→PEFM” is .467, with a p-value of less than .001 (Table 6), which indicates that organizational legitimacy has a significant positive effect on family farm entrepreneurial performance, and hypothesis H6 is supported.

Table 6.

Test Results of the Direct Effect of Organizational Legitimacy and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance.

Path	Standardized path coefficient	SE	C.R. (t-value)	p	Hypothesis	Test result
LEGT→PEFM	0.467	0.080	5.832	***	H6	Support

***

p < .001.

(3) Significance tests for the mediating effect of organizational legitimacy

In this study, AMOS24.0 software was used to conduct Bootstrap mediation effect test on 477 questionnaire sample data, 2,000 times repeated sampling and 95% confidence level were set, to get the point estimate, standard error, Z-value, 95% confidence intervals and their significance of the direct effect, indirect effect of model path analysis, and the results of the test are detailed in Table 7.

Table 7.

Results of the Mediation Effect Analysis (Bootstrapping, 1,000 Resamples).

			Product of coefficient	Bootstrap 1,000 times 95% CI
Path	Effects	Point estimate			Bias corrected		percentile
			SE	Z-value	Lower	Upper	Lower	Upper
OPIC→PEFM	Total effect	0.055	0.030	1.833	0.005	0.176	0.173	0.054
	Indirect effect	0.039	0.016	2.438	0.014	0.079	0.013	0.076
	Direct effect	0.016	0.026	0.615	−0.030	0.074	−0.036	0.068
NETC→PEFM	Total effect	0.109	0.044	2.478	0.027	0.258	0.259	0.016
	Indirect effect	0.093	0.025	3.720	0.052	0.154	0.049	0.148
	Direct effect	0.016	0.039	0.410	−0.062	0.092	−0.063	0.092
RESC→PEFM	Total effect	0.541	0.070	7.729	0.438	0.632	0.635	0.001
	Indirect effect	0.093	0.035	2.657	0.041	0.185	0.038	0.177
	Direct effect	0.448	0.064	7.000	0.323	0.580	0.324	0.581
ENLC→PEFM	Total effect	0.134	0.049	2.735	0.039	0.216	0.214	0.006
	Indirect effect	0.087	0.030	2.900	0.040	0.156	0.039	0.154
	Direct effect	0.047	0.054	0.870	−0.060	0.151	−0.063	0.146
IMPC→PEFM	Total effect	0.133	0.041	3.244	0.081	0.299	0.296	0.001
	Indirect effect	−0.023	0.017	−1.353	−0.063	0.007	−0.058	0.011
	Direct effect	0.156	0.042	3.714	0.079	0.248	0.074	0.243

The results in Table 7 show that the confidence intervals for the total effect of opportunity recognition competence, network competence, resource acquisition competence, entrepreneurial learning competence, and improvisational competence on family farm entrepreneurial performance do not contain 0, indicating that the total effect is significant and there is a mediating effect.

After adding the mediating variable of organizational legitimacy, the point estimate of the indirect effect of opportunity recognition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is 0.039, the standard error is 0.016, and the Z-value is 2.438, which is greater than the critical value of 1.96 and the 95% confidence interval does not contain 0. The results of the two estimation methods indicate that the indirect effect of opportunity recognition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is significant, that is, organizational legitimacy positively mediates the relationship between opportunity recognition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, H7 is supported.

The point estimate of the indirect effect of network competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is 0.093, the standard error is 0.025, and the Z-value obtained is 3.720, which is greater than the critical value of 1.96 and the 95% confidence interval does not contain 0. The results of the two estimation methods indicate that the indirect effect of network competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is significant, that is, the legitimacy of the organization plays a positive mediating effect in the relationship between network competence and family. Therefore, H8 is supported.

The point estimate of the indirect effect of resource acquisition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is 0.093, the standard error is 0.035, and the Z-value is 2.657, which is greater than the critical value of 1.96 and the 95% confidence interval does not contain 0. The results of the two estimation methods indicate that the indirect effect of resource acquisition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is significant, that is, organizational legitimacy plays a positively mediating role in the relationship between resource acquisition competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, H9 is supported.

The point estimate of the indirect effect of entrepreneurial learning competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is 0.087, the standardized coefficient is 0.030, and the Z-value obtained is 2.900, which is greater than the critical value of 1.96 and the 95% confidence interval does not contain 0. The results of the two estimation methods indicate that there is a significant indirect effect of entrepreneurial learning competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance, that is, organizational legitimacy plays a positively mediating effect in the relationship between entrepreneurial learning competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, H10 is supported.

The point estimate of the indirect effect of improvisational competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is −0.023, the standard error is 0.017, and the Z-value obtained is −1.353, which is smaller than the critical value of 1.96 and the 95% confidence interval contains 0. The results of the two estimation methods indicate that the indirect effect of improvisational competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance is not significant, that is, organizational legitimacy does not play a significant effect in the relationship between improvisational competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, H11 is not supported.

Conclusion and Discussions

Research Findings

Compared with previous research, which analyzes the causes of entrepreneurial performance differences from organizational factors, this article constructs a mediation effect model of “competence – legitimacy – performance.” In our study, family farm entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial competence consists of five dimensions, namely, opportunity recognition competence, network competence, resource acquisition competence, entrepreneurial learning competence, and improvisational competence. Through online and offline surveys, this study used 477 valid samples of new family farm entrepreneurs to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and family farms’ entrepreneurial performance. Here are the findings.

First, all the above five aspects of entrepreneurial competences have positive impacts on family farm entrepreneurial performance. Second, organizational legitimacy has a positive impact on family farm entrepreneurial performance. Third, the mediating effect of organizational legitimacy among opportunity recognition competence, network competence, resource acquisition competence, entrepreneurial learning competence, and family farm entrepreneurial performance are supported by data. However, organizational legitimacy does not play a significant mediating role in the relationship of improvisational competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance.

We further discuss the findings as follow. First, entrepreneurship is basically starting from identifying and utilizing new opportunities and then continuously seizing more new opportunities and in the process of entrepreneurship to promote the growth of the business. Our study confirmed that opportunity recognition competence is a key element for family farms to gain competitive advantage and attract the attention from stakeholders. Second, with the deepening of the division of labor and the rapid development of information technology, it is difficult for any family farm to gain a competitive advantage simply through their own accumulated knowledge and resources (Zhu et al., 2023). Hence, proactive networking competence and resource acquisition competence have become a fundamental guarantee of family farms’ value creation and excess profits. Information, capital, labors, and affective support from relationship networks can significantly improve entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial performance (Wang & Wang, 2022). Third, entrepreneurial learning is an important way of acquiring market information and capturing market opportunities, and it is also the key for new ventures to maintain the innovative vitality (Xu et al., 2024). For farmer entrepreneurs, learning can help them develop their own business management experience and take more sophisticated market actions, which in turn can improve entrepreneurial performance. Fourth, in the process of entrepreneurship, family farms will inevitably encounter emergencies due to the uncertain environment, asymmetric information, and insufficient resources. In this case, it is difficult to address the problems by following organizational practices and pre-made plans. It is therefore necessary for entrepreneurs to rely on their improvisational competence to come up with timely and innovative solutions to solve these problems skillfully (Su et al., 2020). Improvisational competence is proved to have significant impact on family farm entrepreneurial performance. Finally, our study also found that organizational legitimacy has a significant impact on family farm entrepreneurial competence. However, the acquisition of organizational legitimacy is neither “get there in one step” nor “once and for all.” Instead, the process of acquiring organizational legitimacy require both long-term deployment and multiple entrepreneurial competencies (Wang & Chen, 2018).

Theoretical Contributions

First, our study expands the dimensions of entrepreneurial competence of family farmers. Previous related studies have focused only on opportunity recognition competence, networking competence, resource acquisition competence, and entrepreneurial learning competence (Rui & Shi, 2018; Xu, et al., 2024; Yi et al., 2018). However, this study proposes that improvisational competence is also an important antecedent factor, which is proved to significantly influence family farm entrepreneurial performance. In this study, the integration of these five dimensions further deepens the understanding of entrepreneurial competencies and the entrepreneurial process.

Second, this study enriches and expands the research results in the field of family farm entrepreneurship. Currently, scholars have mainly conducted relevant studies around the conceptual connotation of family farms, functional positioning, development status, problems, and development countermeasures (Yi et al., 2018). However, fewer have explored what factors influence the performance and growth of family farm entrepreneurship from the perspective of individual level. Our study not only opens up new horizons for entrepreneurship research, but also helps to stimulate the thinking of family farm entrepreneurship practitioners and government decision makers.

Third, our study unveils the “black box” in which entrepreneurial competence affects the entrepreneurial performance of family farms. From the perspective of organizational legitimacy, this study expands the research on the mechanism of individual entrepreneurial competence and family farm entrepreneurial performance. Our study is the first to build the research framework linking the relationship of “entrepreneurial competence – organizational legitimacy – entrepreneurial performance,” which provides a new research path for enriching and expanding family farm entrepreneurship. This study reveals the entrepreneurial rule that entrepreneurial competence is transformed into organizational legitimacy to achieve entrepreneurial performance. That is, the level of organizational legitimacy is a process that is acquired slowly and is significantly influenced by the individual competences of entrepreneurs. Further, increased organizational legitimacy helps to improve family farms entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, our study enriches the research results in the fields of organizational legitimacy and entrepreneurial competence.

Practical Implications

Family farm entrepreneurial activities can promote the level of economic development in rural areas, provide a large number of employment opportunities for farmers, and make a great contribution to rural social stability and economic development. The findings of this paper will bring certain insights and thoughts to individuals concerned with family farm entrepreneurship.

First, entrepreneurial competence of family farmers should be greatly improved. In the whole entrepreneurial process, opportunity identification is the initial starting point and an important direction marker for entrepreneurial activities. Farmers who aspire to create and develop family farms should strive to enhance their ability and skills to search for and identify opportunities, continually improve their cognitive structures for identifying, evaluating, and judging decisions involving entrepreneurship and growth, and enhance their entrepreneurial motivation and decision-making abilities. In addition, family farm entrepreneurs should improve their network competence and social skills, and continuously consolidate and expand new relationship networks to better ensure the quality and value of access to entrepreneurial resources. Further, entrepreneurs should consciously improve their entrepreneurial learning and initiative, and master the necessary entrepreneurial knowledge or new agricultural technologies. It is also necessary to improve the ability to improvise in order to respond to environmental changes in a timely manner and gain instantaneous competitive advantage. Reduce operational risk through continuous learning, trial and error, refinement and adjustment to better sustain frequent business and operational activities.

Second, actively shape the organizational legitimacy base of family farms. Family farm entrepreneurs need to continuously improve the internal and external legitimacy of their farms. Family farms should follow the basic requirements of family business and actively engage in self-regulation. It is necessary to establish a sound institutional system of the farm organization, gradually establish a standardized production system and financial management system, and improve the level of normative development in order to obtain the recognition and support of external stakeholders, such as financial institutions, partners, competitors, and consumers.

Third, family farm entrepreneurs should learn to view the legitimacy of the organization from the stakeholders’ point of view, and understand the value demands of different stakeholders and the resource support they can provide for family farm entrepreneurship. At the same time, it is important to enhance the overall organizational reputation of the family farm in a variety of ways, strengthen the quality management system, create the family farm’s own brand, and enhance the basis for obtaining external legitimacy to promote the sale of the farm’s products or services.

Limitations and Future Directions

While this study draws research conclusions with theoretical contributions and practical implications, there are inevitably some shortcomings that deserve further attention in the future. First of all, the sample selected for this study has some regional limitations. This study only focuses on each prefecture and city in Fujian Province, and it remains to be further verified whether the conclusions of the study are also generalizable to other regions in China. In the future, we should further enrich the regions, types of industries and number of samples to improve the richness and representativeness of the samples. Second, the impact of individual entrepreneurial competence on entrepreneurial performance may have a certain time lag, and this study only investigates the current stage of family farms, without collecting questionnaire data from different points in time to enhance the reliability of the research results. In the future, the research process will be further improved to make up for the lack of research on the transformation mechanism of entrepreneurial competence at different stages and levels. Third, due to time and resource constraints, this study did not explore moderating variables, such as environmental uncertainties to explain the mechanism of entrepreneurial competence on the entrepreneurial performance of family farms. In the future, we should continue to explore other variables to improve the modeling construction and enhance the reasonableness and comprehensiveness of the mechanism of entrepreneurial competence’s influence on the entrepreneurial performance of family farms.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Xiaofeng Su

Xiaoli Jiang

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, resources, data curation, writing – original draft preparation, writing – review and editing, visualization, Xiaofeng Su; writing – review and editing, Xiaoli Jiang; supervision, Anxin Xu; project administration, Anxin Xu; funding acquisition, Xiaoli Jiang & Anxin Xu. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by “Digital Retail Management Research and Innovation Team of Fujian Business University” (Grant: CXTD202303), the project of Social Science Foundation of Fujian Province (Grant: FJ2024BF037), the project of Fujian Provincial Department of Finance “Study on the Development of Regional Public Brands for Agricultural Products in Fujian Province,” and 2024-2025 Basic Theory Research Program of Philosophy and Social Science Disciplines Guided by Marxism in Fujian Universities and Colleges Key Project (FJ2025MGCA021).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

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The Impact of Entrepreneurial Competence on Entrepreneurial Performance of Family Farms: A Comprehensive Research Framework of “Competence – Legitimacy – Performance”

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Literature Review and Development of Hypotheses

Entrepreneurial Competence and Entrepreneurial Performance of Family Farms

Opportunity Recognition Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Network Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Resource Acquisition Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Entrepreneurial Learning Competencies and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Improvisational Competence and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Organizational Legitimacy and Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

The Mediating Role of Organizational Legitimacy

Methods

Sample and Procedures

Measures

Family Farm Entrepreneurial Performance

Entrepreneurial Competence

Organizational Legitimacy

Control Variable

Descriptive Statistics of the Sample

Empirical Analysis and Results Discussion

Reliability and Validity Tests

Hypothesis Test

Structural Model Fit Test

Results of Structural Modeling Analysis

Conclusion and Discussions

Research Findings

Theoretical Contributions

Practical Implications

Limitations and Future Directions

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Author Contributions

Funding

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Data Availability Statement

References