Military Experience and Individual Entrepreneurship—Imprinting Theory Perspective: Empirical Evidence From China

Abstract

Military experience, as a special early experience exerts a very profound impact on individual decision making. This paper investigates the impact of military experience on male labor force entrepreneurial choices and its underlying mechanisms, using the 2014 to 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey data. It is found that military experience significantly reduces the probability of individual entrepreneurship. The analysis of the influence mechanism shows that military experience inhibits survival entrepreneurship mainly by increasing employment opportunities in state-owned units, increasing the probability of becoming a member of the Communist Party of China(CPC), and accumulating human capital. This paper also finds that the inhibitory effect of military experience on individual entrepreneurship varies across household registration groups and is more significant for laborers with non-agricultural household. This paper not only reveals the impact of the military experience on individual entrepreneurship choices, but also provides empirical evidence for the development of innovation and entrepreneurship policies in emerging economies.

Keywords

military experience entrepreneurial choice imprinting theory Chinese context

Introduction

Entrepreneurship is an important engine of economic growth. Its role in promoting innovation and development, industrial upgrading, and economic prosperity has been confirmed by academic circles (Banerjee & Newman, 1993; Beugelsdijk & Noorderhaven, 2004). Especially for developing economies, small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households formed by individual entrepreneurship have contributed significantly to increasing employment and promoting net employment growth (De Mel et al., 2008; Haltiwanger et al., 2013). The investigation on the factors affecting individual entrepreneurial decision-making has become the focus of scholars: at the macro level, government regulation (Bruhn, 2011; Branstetteretal et al., 2013), registered residence system (Lu & Tao, 2010), increase in house price (Deng et al., 2012; Hurst & Lusardi, 2004), and financial development (Dutta & Meierrieks, 2021) are important variables affecting entrepreneurial decision-making; At the micro level, social networks (Munshi & Rosenzweig, 2009), personal endowments (Astebro et al, 2014), family assets (Fairlie & krashinsky, 2012), and religious beliefs (Audretsch et al, 2007; Nunziata & Rocco, 2011) are the main driving forces that push individuals to make entrepreneurial choices. Imprinting theory holds that the special experiences and key events in an individual’s life course will play a decisive role in his future life and development trajectory (Elder, 1998). However, little attention has been paid to the possible role of individual life experience, especially military experience, in entrepreneurship.

In addition, prior studies suggest that the differences in the cognitive structure and process of entrepreneurs will significantly affect individual entrepreneurial decisions (R. A. Baron & Henry, 2010; Mitchell et al., 2007). And they examined a series of cognitive factors related to entrepreneurial behavior, such as self-efficacy, entrepreneurial emotion, role identity, and other cognitive resources, as well as entrepreneurial motivation, entrepreneurial perception, entrepreneurial willingness, and other psychological representations. Imprinting theory provides a potential theoretical perspective for examining the relationship between personality traits, entrepreneurial cognition, and entrepreneurial behavior (Mathias et al., 2015; Suddaby et al., 2015). According to imprinting theory, the experience in the sensitive period has a profound influence on the individual’s cognitive concept and behavior pattern, and this influence is persistent. Even after the individual leaves the sensitive period, the behavioral characteristics formed during this period will not be easily changed (Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013; Milanov & Fernhaber, 2009). At the individual level, researchers identified a particular past experience (such as living environment during the formative years, learning experiences, and periods of significant economic change) as the source of life imprinting (Elder, 1998), and also focuses on how professional training (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2008), scientific research training (Hahn et al., 2019), and other experiences exert a lasting influence on subsequent career through imprinting effect. In recent years, the transfer of imprinting theory to individual entrepreneurial decision-making has become a hot topic of scholars’ attention. For example, Mathias et al. (2015) investigated the lasting impact of entrepreneurs’ early imprinting on subsequent entrepreneurial cognition and entrepreneurial decision-making. Suddaby et al. (2015) proposed the key proposition of “where do entrepreneurial opportunities come from” in the field of entrepreneurship based on the perspective of imprinting theory, and believed that the imprinting mechanism is derived from the perception system formed by entrepreneurs in specific historical situations, that is, the key events experienced by entrepreneurs in sensitive periods will shape their cognition and affect identification of entrepreneurial opportunities.

The army is a socialized institution that highly emphasizes the core values of loyalty and sense of responsibility. It provides an organizational environment for the formation of soldiers’ imprinting of values, which will significantly affect their risk preference, thinking mode, and personality traits (Elder, 1986; Wansink et al., 2008). A growing number of scholars have focused on the impact of military experience on executives’ decision-making behaviors in companies, such as technological innovation (Guo et al., 2020; Lyu et al., 2022), R&D investment (Luo et al., 2017; Lyu & Chen, 2022), tax evasion (Law & Mills, 2017), investment and financing behavior (Benmelech & Frydman, 2015; Malmendier et al., 2011; Su et al., 2020), and information disclosure (Bamber et al., 2010). Koch-Bayram and Wernicke (2018) showed that an individual’s future personality traits, living habits, professional skills, economic status, and social status may be closely related to military experience. The existing literature mainly focuses on the influence of military experience on personal experience from three aspects, the acquisition of veterans’ status (Maclean, 2016; Wu & Treiman, 2004), human capital (Regan & Oaxaca, 2008), and psychological traits (Benmelech & Frydman, 2015; Franke, 2001).The positive effect of military experience on individual education, marriage, and income has been confirmed (C. Zhang, 2015). However, from the perspective of imprinting theory, there is still a lack of in-depth research on the influence mechanism of military experience on entrepreneurial decision-making, especially for the context of the largest transition economy, namely China. China is at a critical stage of transition economy. Peng and Luo (2000) pointed out that the significant feature of this stage is the vacancy in the formal system. In this institutional context, entrepreneurs’ cognitive and ability imprinting, social relations, or networks as an informal institution make up for the absence of formal institutions (Bruton et al., 2013; Peng & Luo, 2000). Therefore, an in-depth insight into the imprinting mechanism of Chinese entrepreneurs is helpful to further reveal the problems of entrepreneurship research in the context of China’s transformation.

It is worth noting that China has a large ex-military population; according to the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, there are currently about 57 million veterans in China, and there are still about 300,000 new veterans each year. Excluding deceased or elderly veterans, a large proportion of the male working population in China still has military experience (C. Zhang, 2015). The transfer and placement of veterans with military experience and their future living conditions have also attracted the attention of some scholars. Researchers have examined the impact of military experience on individuals’ future income levels. Initially, Western scholars argued that the existence of “veteran premium” and hiring preferences made the labor income of veterans of World War II higher than that of the general workforce (Tray, 1982), but scholars have since noted that this finding may be due to the fact that potentially higher earners are more likely to be selected for the military, whereas the opposite is true after controlling for possible endogeneity issues (Angrist & Krueger, 1994). In addition, possible differences in career, status, marriage, and health as a result of military experience have also received scholarly attention. After comparing differences in military effects by social origin, historical period, life cycle, and service status. Using data from the NLSY-79, Teachman (2011) found that veterans are less healthy than expected and have a higher probability of developing high-risk diseases such as heart disease and hypertension. The study shows that veterans’ military background and military training appear to have both facilitating and inhibiting effects on veteran entrepreneurship in Nigeria (Ojo, 2022). Overall, despite the pros and cons to the military experience, there is no doubt that it can have a significant impact on all aspects of one’s future life.

If we turn our attention to the entrepreneurial behavior in the context of China’s transformation. Whether military experience will influence one’s choice of entrepreneurship is worth investigating. If so, what are the potential impact mechanisms? Therefore, this paper systematically examines the impact of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choices and its mechanism from the imprinting theory, using data of male from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) in 2014 and 2016. Finding shows that the military experience of individuals in China significantly reduces the probability of individuals engaging in entrepreneurial activities, and the main mechanism is that the military experience of individuals will increase the employment opportunities of state-owned units, improve the probability of becoming CPCss members and accumulate human capital, and then inhibit the passion of self-employed. Besides, the study also finds that the negative impact of individual military experience on entrepreneurial activities has significant heterogeneity in terms of entrepreneurial type, age, and household registration. The contributions of this paper lie in: On one hand, unlike most studies that focus on macro policies or individual traits to examine the influencing factors of entrepreneurial decisions, the paper systematically investigates the influence of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choices based on imprinting theory, which is helpful for a more comprehensive understanding of the internal mechanism of entrepreneurs’ early experience on individual traits and entrepreneurial decisions; meanwhile, we distinguish the factors of entrepreneurship type, gender, and household registration in detail in the study, and verify the influence mechanism of military experience on entrepreneurial behavior under different conditions. This is helpful to understand the specific influence of military experience on individual values and behavioral characteristics, and enrich the imprinting theory in the field of entrepreneurship. On the other hand, against the background that the issue of professional placement of veterans has received widespread attention from all walks of life. This paper actively investigates the influence of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choices, which is conducive to the development of innovative entrepreneurial policies and also has important practical significance for the improvement of the quality of life and the realization of self-worth of veterans.

The structure of the remaining part of this paper is as follows: the second part is literature review and research hypothesis. Through a brief summary and review of relevant literature, the mechanism of military experience affecting individual entrepreneurial activities is analyzed and the research hypothesis is put forward. The third part is the research design, including the construction of the econometric model, the measurement of variable indicators and data description. The fourth part reports and analyzes the relevant regression results. The fifth part is further research, including mechanism test and heterogeneity analysis. Finally, the paper discusses the research conclusions, puts forward the practical enlightenment, and points out the research shortcomings and future research directions.

Literature Review and Research Hypothesis

Imprinting Theory and Military Experience in China

The imprinting theory rooted in biology believes that there is an environmental sensitive period in the development process of individuals or organizations (Pieper et al., 2015), and the cognitive concept, thinking mode, and behavior mode of individuals and organizations are profoundly influenced by specific environment in the sensitive period (Kiley & Vaisey, 2020; Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013; Milanov & Fernhaber, 2009). Marquis and Tilcsik (2013) systematically summarized three basic elements of imprinting theory through literature review: subject exists in a period of high sensitivity to the external environment, subject’s cultivated, and developed behavioral characteristics match with the environment in the sensitive period, and behavioral characteristics are sustainable. The Chinese army attaches great importance to the ideological, moral, and ideological education of servicemen, which is an important social organization that strongly shapes individual values and behavior patterns (Guo et al., 2020; Luo et al., 2017). The Chinese military implements a universal compulsory military service system. According to China’s regulations on joining the army, most of the conscripts are young men between the ages of 18 and 22 years with no formal work experience. This stage is a critical and sensitive period in which personal values and cognitive patterns are easily shaped by external environment (Wong et al., 2003). Under the influence of long-term strict training and education in the army, soldiers will gradually form the quality characteristics that are suitable for the army environment. Their body, will, cognitive style, and behavior habits are all marked with military brand, and continue to accompany the individual growth track (Goel et al., 2022). Furthermore, the shaping of individual values by military experience has been widely concerned by scholars. Under the Western military training system, military experience imprints a strong sense of integrity, loyalty, dedication, and self-sacrifice (Benmelech & Frydman, 2015; Franke, 2001; Wansink et al.,2008). Under the China’s military system, soldiers abide by the concept of serving the people. Ideological education strengthens soldiers’ values of obeying orders, abiding by rules and disciplines, self-sacrifice, serving the people, and advocating honor (Gao et al., 2021), making individuals inclined to help poor groups (Luo et al., 2017) and protect the environment (Gao et al., 2021). However, the findings on previous military experience have not extended into entrepreneurial contexts and how this is affected by the imprinting influence of military service.

The Effect of Previous Military Experience on Entrepreneurship

Military training, Ideological education and military discipline will significantly shape individual values and behavior norms, and then affect individual entrepreneurial decisions. On the one hand, obeying orders is the principle of discipline that China’s military system attaches great importance to. The most notable feature of Chinese soldiers is their adherence to and persistence in discipline, which has become part of the nature of soldiers. Bamber et al. (2010) demonstrated that soldiers are more observant of laws and rules and seldom question authority, which makes individuals more conservative and tend to make conservative decisions especially in the face of uncertain environment. Franke (2001) compared the value orientation of military cadets with that of ordinary cadets and found that military academies not only abide by the rules, but also tend to be more conservative in their way of dealing with problems. On the other hand, military training and education emphasize clear objectives and controllable actions, with mission completion as the decisive criteria for assessment. The emphasis on risk aversion, controllability, and predictability of results has gradually become an important part of China’s military culture, and it is constantly instilled in the ideology of soldiers. When faced with dangerous and high-risk strategic decisions, soldiers tend to act cautiously and make conservative decisions (Benmelech & Frydman, 2015). Therefore, in the military training system of China, previous military experience may shape the concept of obeying orders, abiding by rules, and avoiding risks, and then affect the entrepreneurial thinking and risk preference characteristics of individuals. As it is difficult to obtain relevant data and information for entrepreneurial activities, entrepreneurs need to make choices in a highly dynamic, complex, and uncertain business environment (Busenitz & Barney, 1997). Furthermore, resource constraints and a sense of time urgency require entrepreneurship to identify and grasp market opportunities boldly (Gruber et al., 2008). Thus, veterans may prefer to choose more controllable ordinary occupations rather than entrepreneurial activities that need to take huge risks. Therefore, this paper puts forward:

Hypothesis 1: when other conditions remain unchanged, the military experience will inhibit the individual’s entrepreneurial choice.

Next, this paper further explores the specific mechanism by which military experience inhibits individual entrepreneurial choice in the context of Chinese institutions. This inhibition is shown in the following aspects:

Firstly, for the acquisition of veterans’ status, most studies have given evidence that military experience has a positive impact on individual life well-being and social status acquisition. They believe that joining the army is a significant way for individuals, especially for young people with relatively scarce resources to realize upward mobility (Sampson & Laub, 1996). Specifically, military experience mainly realizes the acquisition of individual status from two aspects.

The first is the career choice of veterans. Veterans are more likely to work in public departments such as state-owned enterprises or public institutions after demobilization. Winters (2018) investigated the employment differences between veterans and general employees based on the micro data of the 2013 to 2015 American Community Survey. The results show that veteran status greatly increases the likelihood of individuals entering the federal government and public sector employment. In China, the government’s placement measures for demobilized soldiers have also greatly increased the probability of veterans entering the public sector. The number of veterans and their final employment option announced by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security also show that the majority of demobilized soldiers enter the government sector every year and in 2014, 75% of the 40,000 demobilized soldiers were transferred to relevant units by the state. A stable and decent job often becomes an obstacle to individual entrepreneurial activities. At the beginning of entrepreneurship, the small scale and arduous process deprive most public servants of intention to start their own business. Therefore, the early private enterprises mainly originated from the bottom of society or marginalized social groups (Hsu, 2006), and the proportion of personnel with state-owned background, especially cadres, is very low (Nee, 1991), Even if the sources of private entrepreneurs are more diverse, the probability of cadres entering the private economy is still declining (Wu, 2006). Therefore, military experience may inhibit individual entrepreneurship because of better career acquisition. Therefore, this paper proposes:

Hypothesis 2: Military experience may inhibit individuals’ entrepreneurial choices by increasing employment opportunities in state-owned units.

The second manifestation of status acquisition from military experience is a change in political status. In China, joining the Communist Party of China (CPC) has always been glorious and sacred. The identity of a CPC member is not only a symbol different from the general public, but also a symbol of unparalleled spiritual strength and cultural core. Concomitantly, the high requirements for joining CPC make membership associated with high competence and quality and thus a visible signal of social recognition (Bian et al., 2001). There has been a positive association between military experience and Party membership, and C. Zhang (2015), by distinguishing between different life course stages and service status, verified that the increased probability of Party membership among veterans is not only due to the direct impact of military status, but also due to the opportunities brought by their post-military urban employment and cadre positions.

Party membership increases the likelihood of job opportunities within the state system and a sense of belonging and identity to the state system, especially in less economically developed regions where the political consciousness of CPC members may further strengthen their desire for the state system and exhibit “risk aversion” (Lau et al., 2009; Liu, 2003), and institutional dependence and risk aversion can create a psychological “comfort zone” for some political elites, resulting in greater stability (Luo et al., 2022; Lyu et al., 2023; Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013; Tversky, 1992). Therefore, the increased probability of joining the Party due to military experience is another possible mechanism by which veterans are less likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities. This paper, therefore, proposes:

Hypothesis 3: the military experience may reduce their entrepreneurial tendency by changing their political status.

Secondly, from a human capital perspective, it is easier to accumulate the abilities and qualities of obedience to command and hard work appreciated by employers during military service period. Therefore, individuals having military experience are more likely to be favored by the labor market, and the employment rate of veterans is higher because of their vital role in the youth labor market (Angrist, 1998). The military experience not only brings strong and unyielding spiritual will, but also increases the opportunities for relevant vocational skills training for vulnerable youth groups. The continuous improvement of professional skills leads to the rapid accumulation of their human capital thus helping young people with military experience to get through the difficult early stage of career selection and find their preferred positions faster (C. Zhang, 2015). Figinski (2017) explored the relationship between military experience and the labor market and found that business owners in the market obviously showed a tendency to hire veterans. Veterans were about 20% more likely to be hired when applying for a job compared to those with no military experience. Similar conclusions also were found in Kleykamp’s (2009) survey on the labor market in big cities. Veterans are more popular in the human resources market and are more likely to find suitable and high paying jobs. The preference of employers and high paying jobs may lead individuals to choose to become wage earners rather than entrepreneurs. Therefore, the inhibition of entrepreneurial choice by military experience may also be caused by the accumulation of professional skills and human capital. Therefore, this paper holds that:

Hypothesis 4: military experience may inhibit individual entrepreneurial choice by accumulating human capital.

Military training, Ideological education and military discipline will shape the military values of obeying orders, abiding by rules, and avoiding risks. These imprints of military value strengthens the risk aversion tendency of individual entrepreneurial activities and restrict their entrepreneurial thinking, and then inhibit individual entrepreneurial decisions. Specifically, military experience in China’s unique institutional context inhibits entrepreneurial decisions by increasing employment opportunities in individual state-owned enterprises, changing political status, and accumulating human capital.

Research Design

Research Samples and Data Sources

The data used in this paper are mainly from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) in 2014 and 2016. It is available from http://css.sysu.edu.cn. The survey was conducted by the Social Science Survey Center of Sun Yat-sen University, and the sample covered 29 provinces (excluding Tibet, Hainan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan), and the questionnaire included three levels: individual, household, and village, covering the work status, military experience, gender, age, household economic situation, and parental and spouse-related situations of all laborers in the sample households. The purpose is to monitor the changes and interaction of village social structure, families, and individuals.

CLDS database contains 23,594 individual samples and 14,214 family samples in 2014; and 21,086 individual samples and 14,226 family samples in 2016. In this paper, the data are processed as follows: (1) the individual data and family data are combined according to the family questionnaire number in order to obtain the comprehensive index of individual and family status. (2) Considering that the vast majority of soldiers are men, all female samples in the data are excluded. (3) Considering that the minimum requirement for education for joining the army is above junior middle school (including junior middle school), the samples with education level of primary school and below are excluded. (4) Considering the age of entrepreneurs, the samples under the age of 20 years and over the age of 60 years are excluded. (5) Samples with missing values and abnormal related data of core variables (occupation type, income, etc.) in the model are excluded. Through screening, this paper finally retained 12,017 valid samples, of which 840 were those who had military experience, accounting for 6.99% of the total sample.

Model Setting

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choice. Based on the existing research, this paper sets up the following probit model

selfemplo y_{it} = α + β_{1} vetera n_{it} + γ X_{it} + μ_{it}

(1)

Where, $selfemplo y_{it}$ is the explanatory variable of the model, which indicates whether individual i started a business in year t. $vetera n_{it}$ is the key explanatory variable, indicating whether individual i has military experience. $X_{it}$ is the set of control variables, including individual age, household registration, region, marital status, education level, family economic status, etc., $μ_{it}$ indicates random disturbance.

Definition of Key Variables

Explanatory Variables

The explanatory variable in this paper is “whether or not to start a business.” Regarding working status, the CLDS classifies respondents into four types (1) employee; (2) employer; (3) self-employed; and (4) farming, according to their workplace, the type of license registered by work organization, and whether they employ others. This paper refers to the classification of entrepreneurship types by GEM and considers both “employer” and “self-employed” as involved in entrepreneurial activities based on the CLDS questionnaire data, where “employers” are individuals involved in opportunity-based entrepreneurship, and “self-employed” are individuals involved in survival-based entrepreneurship. According to this definition, the proportion of entrepreneurs in the data is 18.64%, the proportion of opportunity entrepreneurship is 3.11%, and the proportion of survival entrepreneurship is 15.54%.

Key Explanatory Variables

The key explanatory variable in this paper is whether or not they have military experience. In the CLDS questionnaire, the question was “Have you ever joined the military,” and according to the answers, those who answered “yes” were assigned a value of 1 and those who answered “no” were assigned a value of 0.

Control Variables

The control variables in this paper mainly include (1) personal characteristics, which include age, education level, household registration, and marital status, which are important factors affecting entrepreneurial activity (Minniti & Nardone, 2007; Verheul et al., 2006). Age was calculated based on the year of birth answered by the respondents, and the age was squared to ensure the accuracy of the results; educational level was categorized into secondary education (high school and below) and tertiary education (college and above) according to the highest education level of the respondents; household registration was assigned a value of 1 for non-agricultural households and 0 for agricultural households; marital status “first marriage,”“remarriage,” and “cohabitation” was assigned a value of 1, the rest is 0, while the province is divided into eastern, central, western, and northeastern. (2) Family situation, which includes total household size, total income, and savings rate. The total number of people is the number of people in the household, the total income is the total annual income of the household, and the savings rate is calculated from the total income and total expenditure.

Mediating Variables

Mediating effect model was adopted to test the mechanism of the influence of military experience on individual entrepreneurial activities. The possible channels of influence mentioned in the previous section are increasing employment opportunities in state-owned units, changing political status, accumulating human capital, and influencing personality traits, etc. Because the situation of personality traits is highly subjective, CLDS does not make relevant inquiries about respondents’ personality. Considering the availability of data, this paper will test the mechanism of the three channels: employment in state-owned units, political status, and human capital accumulation. The selected mediating variables are: (1) employment opportunities in state-owned organizations are measured by the respondent’s answer of “type of first job,” and the responses like “party and governmental agencies,”“state-owned and collective institutions,” and “state-owned enterprises” were assigned a value of 1, while the rest were assigned a value of 0. (2) Political status is assigned a value of 1 for Communist and 0 for the rest. (3) Human capital is measured by individual occupational skills and is assigned a value of 1 for having at least one technical qualification and 0 for not having one.

The descriptive statistics of the main variables are shown in Table 1, which shows that those who have had military experience are more reluctant to start a business, specifically, the probability of starting a business is 37.3% lower for veterans, 43.1% lower for survival-oriented entrepreneurship, and slightly lower for opportunity-oriented entrepreneurship, and the difference is not significant compared to non-veterans. In addition, the proportion of veterans who are party members, have vocational skills, and have initial employment in state-owned enterprises are higher.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of Main Variables.

variables	Full sample		Samples of military experience		Samples of no military experience
variables	Mean	Standarderror	Mean	Standarderror	Mean	Standarderror
Entrepreneurship (yes = 1)	0.193	0.395	0.126	0.332	0.198	0.399
Survival entrepreneurship (yes = 1)	0.160	0.367	0.096	0.295	0.165	0.372
Opportunity-based entrepreneurship (yes = 1)	0.033	0.178	0.030	0.171	0.033	0.178
Age	41.447	11.501	45.348	10.668	41.154	11.508
Age²/100	18.501	9.340	21.700	9.126	18.260	9.312
Marriage (married = 1)	0.820	0.384	0.899	0.302	0.814	0.389
Household (non-agricultural = 1)	0.315	0.465	0.469	0.499	0.304	0.460
Secondary education (yes = 1)	0.786	0.41	0.731	0.444	0.79	0.407
Tertiary education (yes = 1)	0.214	0.410	0.269	0.444	0.210	0.407
Household size	4.36	1.86	4.117	1.786	4.378	1.865
Savings rate	0.405	0.26	0.395	0.254	0.406	0.260
ln(income)	10.701	0.995	10.824	1.012	10.692	0.993
Eastern (yes = 1)	0.447	0.497	0.438	0.496	0.448	0.497
Central (yes = 1)	0.199	0.399	0.198	0.398	0.199	0.399
Western (yes = 1)	0.280	0.449	0.299	0.458	0.278	0.448
Northeastern (yes = 1)	0.075	0.263	0.065	0.248	0.075	0.264
Communist (yes = 1)	0.143	0.350	0.559	0.497	0.111	0.314
Skill (yes = 1)	0.216	0.412	0.277	0.448	0.211	0.408
First job (State-owned enterprise = 1)	0.299	0.458	0.548	0.499	0.280	0.449

Analysis of Empirical Results

Baseline Regression Results

Table 2 shows the estimation results of the marginal effect of military experience on entrepreneurial choice, which represents the percentage of increase in the probability of “entrepreneurship” of the dependent variable when the independent variable increases by one unit. Column (1) only controls the experience of joining the army, the fixed effect of years, and the fixed effect of provinces. The results show that compared with non-veterans, the probability of veterans choosing entrepreneurship is 27.9% (z = −4), which preliminarily shows that the military experience tends to reduce the probability of individuals choosing entrepreneurship. To eliminate the interference of other variables, the control variables of personal and family status are added to the regression of columns (2) and (3). Column (2) shows the regression results after controlling personal characteristics such as age, household registration, marital status, and education level. Although the absolute value of military experience coefficient has decreased, it is still negative and significant at the level of 1%, indicating that after controlling the relevant variables of personal characteristics, military experience still significantly inhibits individual entrepreneurial choice. On this basis, column (3) continues to control the variables related to family situation. The results show that the military experience still has a significant negative impact on entrepreneurial choice. The above test results better confirm the hypothesis 1 proposed in this paper. It shows that the military experience of an individual has shaped his personality traits of obeying discipline, discerning danger, and being strict with himself, which enhances his tendency to avoid risk or uncertainty and restrains his entrepreneurial passion and positive entrepreneurial attitude. Therefore, it is not conducive to the cultivation of individual entrepreneurship ability. As Svotwa et al. (2022) showed that entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial attitude can positively affect individual entrepreneurial ability.

Table 2.

Baseline Regression Results.

	(1)	(2)	(3)
Military experience	−0.297*** (0.0611)	−0.224*** (0.0628)	−0.279*** (0.0765)
Age		0.0841*** (0.0122)	0.0907*** (0.0153)
Age²/100		−0.00113*** (0.000147)	−0.00119*** (0.000183)
Household		−0.0824** (0.0364)	−0.237*** (0.0451)
Married		0.120** (0.0502)	0.0259 (0.0631)
Tertiary education		−0.466*** (0.0445)	−0.622*** (0.0539)
ln(income)			0.297*** (0.0262)
Savings rate			−0.377*** (0.0775)
Household size			−0.0111 (0.0102)
Constant	−0.848*** (0.0197)	−2.292*** (0.189)	−4.991*** (0.344)
Provincial fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	10,297	10,258	7,040

***

, **, and * are significant at the levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively; standard errors are in parentheses.

As for other control variables, age has an inverted U-shaped relationship with entrepreneurial choice. Individuals with spouses and high total family income are more likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Household registration, education level, savings rate, and total family population have a negative correlation with individual entrepreneurial choice. The above results are basically in line with expectations.

Robustness Analysis and Endogeneity Discussion

The baseline regression results show that military experience will significantly reduce the probability of individual entrepreneurship. To ensure the reliability of the results, this paper further tests the robustness of the results and discusses the endogeneity of the results.

Robustness Analysis

(1) In the previous analysis, samples under the age of 20 years and over the age of 60 years were excluded and were re-added in the robustness test. Column (1) of Table 3 lists the regression results after adding this sample. The results show that the size and significance of the marginal effect (coefficient) have not changed much compared with the baseline regression. Therefore, the excluded samples have little impact on the empirical results of this paper. Concurrently, it further shows that military experience is not conducive to individual entrepreneurial choice.

Table 3.

Robustness Test and Endogenous Test.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
		Logit	Ivprobit
Military experience	−0.276*** (0.0735)	−0.517*** (0.144)		−2.780*** (0.890)
Tertiary industry in GDP			−0.000634* (0.000365)
Natural growth rate			0.00228** (0.000932)
Constant	−4.644*** (0.324)	−9.381*** (0.701)	−4.217*** (1.112)	−0.00580 (0.0698)
ALN p-valve			.2871	.2871
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Provincial fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	7,634	7,040	5,812	5,812

***

, **, and * are significant at the levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively; standard errors are in parentheses.

(2) In the baseline regression, the probit method is mainly used to test the impact of military experience on individual entrepreneurial activities. In the robustness test, logit method was adopted to re regress the model. The results are shown in column (2) of Table 3. The logit model shows that compared with non-veterans, the probability of veterans choosing entrepreneurship is 51.7% lower, and the coefficient is significant at the level of 1%, This result again shows that the conclusion of this paper is robust.

Endogenous Analysis

To accurately estimate the effect of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choices, it is necessary to consider the possible endogenous issues of the model, such as sample selection bias, missing variables, and reverse causality. The CLDS data adopted is a nationwide random sampling data, and data selected are from 2014 and 2016, which are highly representative, so the sample selection bias is less likely. Because this paper adopts the sample over 20 years old, and the age of joining the army is 18 to 20 years old, the work status after the age of 20 years can not affect the previous joining behavior, so no special attention should be paid to the reverse causality problem. In addition, the labor force sample is divided into “military experience” and “no military experience.” The explanatory variables are also defined as entrepreneurship or non-entrepreneurship according to the working status, which effectively reduces the measurement error of the core variables. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the endogenous problems caused by the omission of some non-observational factors that may affect the military experience and entrepreneurial choice. This paper selects the proportion of tertiary industry in GDP and natural growth rate of local cities in 1996 as the instrumental variables of military experience to correct this problem. The proportion of the tertiary industry in GDP and the natural growth rate are important indicators to measure the local economic situation. In general, areas with a larger proportion of the tertiary industry have better economic conditions. Concurrently, the smaller natural growth rate means that the population growth is slow, and the local economy is improving. In places with better economic conditions, young people have more choices (Glass, 1976), and the probability of joining the army tends to decline, Therefore, the proportion of the tertiary industry in GDP and the natural growth rate are a crucial factor affecting young people’s participation in the army.

Another reason why these two variables were adopted as the economic instrumental variables for military experience is that they are highly exogenous to individual entrepreneurial behavior. First, there is no issue of continuity between the two. The time points of the two instrumental variables used in this article are 1996, while the data for entrepreneurship are 2014 and 2016, which are 20 years apart. Second, the proportion of GDP of the tertiary industry is the macro data at the municipal level, and entrepreneurship is the micro data of individuals, therefore, it is reasonable to judge that the selected instrumental variables are exogenous.

Columns (3) and (4) of Table 3 report the regression results of ivprobit. From the regression results of the first stage in column (3), it can be seen that the proportion of tertiary industry in GDP and the natural growth rate have a greater impact on individual military participation. It can be considered that there is no problem of weak instrumental variables in choosing the two as the instrumental variables of military experience. In order to further test the rationality of the instrumental variables, this article then carried out an over-identification test. The Amemiya-Lee-Newey P-value is 0.2871. The null hypothesis cannot be rejected. Therefore, it can be concluded that the instrumental variables used in this paper have a strong explanatory power for individual military experience. Column (4) of Table 3 is the regression result of the second stage of ivprobit. After eliminating endogeneity, individual military experience still has a negative effect on entrepreneurial choice, and it is statistically significant at the 1% level. In general, the results of the robustness test are basically consistent with the baseline regression results, which once again confirms that the conclusion of Hypothesis 1 is reliable.

Further Research: Mechanism Test and Heterogeneity Analysis

Mechanism Analysis of Military Experience and Individual Entrepreneurship Choice

The impact of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choice has been investigated and the results shows military experience significantly and steadily reduces the probability of individual entrepreneurship, but the mechanism through which military experience inhibits individual entrepreneurial choice needs to be further studied. This study is conducive to a deeper understanding of the internal relationship between military experience and entrepreneurship. This paper will reveal the possible influence mechanism by constructing a mediating effect model. According to the previous theoretical analysis, the individual initial employment unit, political status and vocational skills will be selected as mediating variables, and the mediating effect model will be set with reference to the existing literature (R. M. Baron & Kenny, 1987) as follows:

selfemplo y_{it} = α_{1} + β_{1} vetera n_{it} + γ X_{it} + μ_{it}

(2)

M_{it} = α_{2} + β_{2} vetera n_{it} + γ X_{it} + μ_{it}

(3)

selfemplo y_{it} = α_{3} + β_{3} vetera n_{it} + ω M_{it} + γ X_{it} + μ_{it}

(4)

Where M_it represents the mediating variable in this article, the rest of the variable definition is consistent with model (1). The effect of the mediating variables is given by the coefficients β₁, β₂, β₃ and $ω$ , which indicates a mediating effect if β₂ shares the same symbol with $ω$ and ∣β3∣ is less than ∣β1∣ or β2 shares opposite symbol with and ∣β3∣ is greater than ∣β1∣. The proportion of the mediating variable M in explaining the role of the military experience in individual entrepreneurial choices can be calculated by formula $\frac{∣ β 3 - β 1 ∣}{∣ β 1 ∣}$ .

Table 4 reports the channel test results of influence of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choices. Column (1) is the regression result of model (2), that is, the baseline regression model, so the regression result is the same as column (3) of Table 1. Column (2) shows the regression results with individual initial employment unit as the dependent variable. This paper contends that the estimation coefficient of military experience is significantly positive, indicating that after controlling other influencing factors, individual military experience has a strong impact on their career choice of their first job. The probability of veterans entering the state-owned unit is 61.8% higher than that of non-veterans. This, on the one hand, may be because the state’s placement policy for veterans will allow some military personnel to directly enter state-owned institutions after demobilization. With the improvement of the policy, most veterans will be properly resettled, and the probability of entering state-owned units gradually increases. On the other hand, veterans may also tend to choose occupations that can continue to contribute to the country, such as civil servants and village cadres. Their long-term military life makes them more self-dedicated and want to be in a collective working environment. At the same time, the long-term separation from their families due to military service will make them feel guilty about their families. Out of the psychology of compensation, they also tend to work stably after they demobilize from the army. Column (3) reports the regression results with political status as the dependent variable (i.e., model (3)). The results show that the estimation coefficient of the variable of military experience is significantly positive, which indicates that individuals with military experience have a higher probability of being Party members. This is in line with the research results of Wu and Treiman (2004). Joining the army is an important way for Chinese youth to obtain social status and move upward. The dependent variable in column (4) is vocational skills. The regression results show that the military experience has a significant positive impact on the improvement of personal vocational skills indicating military experience is not only conducive to the acquisition of individual social status, but also conducive to the accumulation of human capital. The possible explanation is that during military service, young people can obtain high-quality vocational training opportunities. For some young people who lack resources, military experience can help them through the most difficult job search process in the early stage. Military vocational training can be used as another effective way to increase human capital in addition to receiving higher education. In addition, the hard-working spirit cultivated by the military culture may also make soldiers more willing to make more efforts than others to acquire the professional skills they need.

Table 4.

Mechanism Test Results.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
	Entreprene-urship	State-owned enterprise	Communi-st	Skill	Entrepren-eurship	Entrepren-eurship	Entrepren-eurship
Military experience	−0.279*** (0.0765)	0.618*** (0.109)	1.309*** (0.0588)	0.149** (0.0599)	0.0153 (0.126)	−0.130 (0.0805)	−0.266*** (0.0768)
State-owned enterprise					−0.218*** (0.0801)
Communist						−0.391*** (0.0627)
Skill							−0.277*** (0.0467)
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Provincial fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Constant	−5.201*** (0.384)	−4.399*** (0.342)	−4.26*** (0.413)	−3.034*** (0.645)	−5.348*** (0.386)	−5.215*** (0.387)	−5.445*** (0.694)
Observatios	7,040	2,542	7,997	8,049	2,145	6,991	7,038

***

, **, and * are significant at the levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively; standard errors are in parentheses.

Columns (5) to (7) of Table 4 further show the regression results of entrepreneurial choice on military experience and mediating variables (i.e., corresponding to model (4)). Column (5) shows the results of adding the mediating variable of initial employment unit in the basic regression. This paper finds that the coefficient of initial employment as a state-owned unit is significantly negative, that is, the entrepreneurial probability of people in the state-owned unit is 21.8% lower than that in other posts, mainly because for Chinese people, state-owned units are often synonymous with dignity and stability. This idea is particularly true for the previous generation. Joining a state-owned enterprise is like holding a “golden rice bowl,” so most people will not give up it because of entrepreneurship. As can be seen from the results in column (6), the regression coefficient of Party member status is negative and significant at the level of 1%, which indicates that the probability of Party members choosing entrepreneurship is significantly lower than that of others. This is basically consistent with the previous analysis. Party members have more advantages in competing for positions in civil servants or other public institutions. Therefore, CPC members may also prefer this kind of work rather than starting their own businesses. As can be seen from column (7), the regression coefficient of the mediating variable vocational skills is also significantly negative, which means that more vocational skills are not conducive to individual entrepreneurial choices. According to Human Capital Theory, the impact of human capital on entrepreneurship shows heterogeneity. High human capital may promote opportunity-based entrepreneurial activities, but inhibit survival entrepreneurial activities (Dickson et al., 2008; Unger et al., 2011). Generally, individuals with higher human capital are more favored by the labor market and more likely to get high paid jobs. Therefore, they will not consider survival entrepreneurial activities except opportunity-based entrepreneurship with higher return.

This paper also notes that, compared with the baseline regression results in column (1), the absolute value and significance of the coefficient of military experience after adding the mediating variable have decreased, which shows that obtaining a job in a state-owned unit, changing the political status and accumulating human capital are all possible channels for military experience to affect individual entrepreneurial choices. From the degree of declining and significance of the coefficient, the change of political status and the increase of employment opportunities in state-owned units are the two main channels for military experience to inhibit individual entrepreneurship. After adding the two variables, the coefficient of military experience is not significant, while the increase of vocational skills plays a relatively minor role, only up to 4.6%. The above test results well confirm hypothesis 2 to hypothesis 4.

Heterogeneity Test

Considering that the different types of entrepreneurship and individual differences caused by age and household registration may show different results, this part will further study whether the military experience will vary according to the type of entrepreneurial choice, and consider the heterogeneity of the entrepreneurial choices of different ages and household registration. An in-depth study will help to more comprehensively and systematically reveal the relationship between military experience and individual entrepreneurial choice.

Heterogeneity of Entrepreneurial Types

When serving the army, it is easy for young people to cultivate precious qualities such as hardworking, perseverance, and down-to-earth spirit, which are all required for the entrepreneurial process, and related vocational training also help veterans to accumulate a certain amount of knowledge, but the military experience shows signs of inhibiting entrepreneurial choices. It is believed that this may be related to the type of entrepreneurship. The increase in professional status and human capital brought by military experience makes veterans not inclined to participate in survival entrepreneurial activities. Currently, the type of entrepreneurship in China is mainly survival entrepreneurship, therefore, it is very necessary to distinguish different entrepreneurial types by considering the overall result from the perspective of military experience inhibiting individual entrepreneurial choices. To verify the previous speculation, this paper divides the entrepreneurial group into two sub-samples of employers and self-employed, in which employers represent opportunity-based entrepreneurship, self-employment represents survival entrepreneurship, and the regression results are reported in Columns (1) and (2) of Table 5, respectively. It can be seen that the estimated coefficient of military experience in the survival-type entrepreneurial sub-sample is significantly negative, and the absolute value of the coefficient is greatly increased compared with the baseline regression, while the coefficient of military experience in the opportunity-based entrepreneurial sub-sample is not significant, indicating that the military experience significantly inhibits the individual survival-type entrepreneurial choice, and has no significant impact on the opportunity-based entrepreneurship. Therefore, it is believed that the military experience for individual choice of inhibition is mainly reflected in survival entrepreneurship.

Table 5.

Heterogeneity Test.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
	Employers	Self-employment	Non-agricultural	Agricultural	20–30	30–40	40–60
Military experience	−0.394 (0.284)	−0.676*** (0.165)	−0.441*** (0.124)	−0.184* (0.0992)	−0.348 (0.260)	0.0895 (0.153)	−0.432*** (0.101)
Constant	−21.97*** (1.664)	−3.704*** (0.801)	−3.774*** (0.785)	−5.702*** (0.447)	0.0389 (5.073)	−3.333 (8.168)	−1.424 (2.151)
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Provincial fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effect	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observatios	7,040	7,040	2,381	4,659	1,303	1,466	3,860

***

, **, and * are significant at the levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively; standard errors are in parentheses.

Household Registration Heterogeneity

To consider the differences in the performance of different household registrations in the choice of entrepreneurship, the total sample is divided into two sub-samples of agricultural households and non-agricultural households and the regression results of these two sub-samples are reported in Columns (3) and (4) of Table 5, respectively. It is noticeable the military experience coefficient is significantly negative in both agricultural households and non-agricultural household subsamples. Further comparison shows that the absolute value of the military experience coefficient in the sample of non-agricultural households is greater, indicating that compared with agricultural households, the military experience has a greater inhibitory effect on the individual entrepreneurial choices of non-agricultural households. This may be because in the process of professional placement of veterans, non-agricultural household soldiers are more likely to have access to state-owned units because of their geographical and resource advantages, while non-agricultural household youth may receive more education than agricultural household peers before joining the army and are more likely to obtain vocational training in the military, thus demonstrating greater inhibitory effect on entrepreneurial choices.

Age Heterogeneity

This paper also attempts to analyze the impact of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choices at different ages. The results are shown in columns (5) to (7) of table 5, demonstrating that the inhibitory effect of military experience on entrepreneurial choice was mainly reflected in the groups aged 40 to 60 years, but had no significant effect on the young and middle-aged groups. This may be because for the older generation aged 40 to 60 years, the job opportunities in state-owned enterprises are more attractive, so they tend to choose comfortable and stable jobs. Moreover, with the rapid development of China’s economy, individual entrepreneurship also shows a trend of decreasing difficulty and higher return. Young people are in the golden period of upward development in life and are more likely to give up a stable life and pursue the high return brought by entrepreneurship.

Conclusions and Discussion

Conclusion

Demobilization and placement of veterans is currently a key issue of concern in China and various emerging economies. Based on the Imprinting Theory, this paper systematically analyzes the impact of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choice and its internal mechanism by using the male samples in the data of China Labor-force Dynamic Survey (CLDs) in 2014 and 2016. The main conclusions are as follows: First, the military experience significantly reduces the probability of individuals engaging in entrepreneurial activities. This conclusion is still reliable after a series of robustness tests such as replacing estimation methods, increasing samples, and overcoming potential endogenous problems. Crecente et al. (2020) reached a similar conclusion in the impact of military service and military education on entrepreneurship, believing that high moral standards and compliance with rules and disciplines may make individuals with military experience more conservative, which hinders individual entrepreneurial decision-making. Xu et al. (2022) contend that military experience makes entrepreneurs more self-sacrificing and more willing to participate in poverty alleviation and entrepreneurship, which does not contradict with the conclusion of this paper. This paper maintains that the inhibitory influence of military experience on individual entrepreneurial choices is mainly manifested in survival entrepreneurship and no obvious inhibitory effect on opportunity-based entrepreneurship was found, and poverty-alleviation-oriented entrepreneurship is not among survival entrepreneurship. Second, the mechanism test shows that the main channel through which the military experience affects the choice of individual entrepreneurship is to increase employment opportunities in state-owned enterprises, change the political status, and accumulate human capital. Among them, increasing the employment opportunities at state-owned units and changing the political status are the most important channels of influence, which also confirms the conclusion that military experience contributes to the upward mobility of individuals (C. Zhang, 2015). For a long time, China’s elite selection model has been adhering to the principle of equal emphasis on political loyalty and professional ability, under which military experience has become an important channel for individuals to move up. In addition, the emergence of some executives with military experience in China reflects that veteran may give full play to the advantages accumulated in military service period and devote them to opportunity-based entrepreneurship (Guo et al., 2020). Third, compared with agricultural household individuals, the military experience has a more obvious inhibitory effect on entrepreneurial choice for non-agricultural household individuals. Concurrently, the adverse impact of military experience on entrepreneurial choices is gradually weakening with the improvement of China’s economic situation. This inhibitory effect is mainly significant for individuals aged 40 to 60 years.

Contributions

Our study contributes to the literature in the following ways. Firstly, imprinting theory theory has made abundant research achievements in the research fields of individuals, organizations and institutions, and has formed a multi-level theoretical system (Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013). Studies involving entrepreneurs’ imprinting focus on the lasting impact of a particular past experience on entrepreneurs’ subsequent entrepreneurial decisions (Mckeever et al., 2015). However, these studies have paid less attention to the significant influence of military experience on subsequent entrepreneurial choices through the imprinting effect (Marquis & Qiao, 2020). By examining the influence of military experience and entrepreneurial choice, this study not only contributes to a deeper understanding of the specific impact of military experience on individual values and behavioral characteristics, but also enriches the imprinting theory in the field of entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, by identifying the mechanism and heterogeneity of military experience inhibiting individual entrepreneurial activities, it is helpful to analyze the black box and boundary conditions of military experience affecting individual decision-making. Secondly, by studying the behavior of individual military experience in entrepreneurial activities and exploring the value ranking and cognitive structure related to military experience behind, it can provide important enlightenment and direction guidance for the training of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills of military groups. Military experience, as an individual’ s early experience, will influence one’s deep psychological and personality characteristics, which significantly affects his behavior after demobilization (Koch-Bayram & Wernicke, 2018). Each year, a great number of veterans with military training experience enter the market economy sector such as enterprises, especially in China’s “emerging + transformation” market scenario, it is of great significance to study how they make entrepreneurial decisions for promoting the vitality of the market economy. Finally, the research on entrepreneurship in the Chinese context is still in the exploratory stage (Xu et al., 2022). The black box of unique entrepreneurial phenomena and evolutionary mechanisms in the Chinese context has not yet been opened. From the perspective of Chinese military system shaping individual value, this paper explores the influence of early military experience on individual entrepreneurial choice. It can help insight into the influence of institutional environment on the cognitive process of entrepreneurs by combining the unique Chinese situational elements, and help reveal the unique problems of entrepreneurship research in China.

Practical Implications

This paper has important implications for practice and policy-making. On the one hand, emerging economies can increase entrepreneurship training courses in the military, strengthen soldiers’ entrepreneurial awareness and entrepreneurial ability, and encourage soldiers to start more opportunity entrepreneurship after they demobilize from the army. This will not only bring more income to veterans, but also help to increase employment in emerging economies and make their economies develop rapidly in a higher quality, more efficient, and more sustainable direction. Kerrick et al. (2014) showed that systematic entrepreneurship training for veterans could help them acquire management, legal, marketing, and other knowledge needed for entrepreneurship, thus improving their entrepreneurship ability. At the same time, veterans can broaden their network through the entrepreneurship training courses, helping them to obtain business resources and stimulate their passion for entrepreneurship. Crecente et al. (2020) further demonstrated that entrepreneurship education programs for veterans help spur self-employment. On the other hand, government departments can appropriately provide more help in policies, funds, and social networks for veterans’ entrepreneurial activities to enhance their enthusiasm for entrepreneurial activities. As China is in the period of transition economy, the formal system is still not perfect, and there are some phenomena such as imperfect legal system, low efficiency of financial system, and relatively closed entrepreneurial network, which make it difficult for entrepreneurs to obtain resources through the market (J. Zhang & Wong, 2008). Therefore, entrepreneurs need to build legitimacy through political relations to solve the resource scarcity dilemma (Sheng et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2008) to help veterans break the bottleneck of entrepreneurship.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

The research of this paper also has the following shortcomings. Firstly, since the existing database cannot obtain more detailed data of individuals’ military service experience, it is impossible to investigate how specific characteristics such as length of service, service type, and military rank affect individuals’ entrepreneurial choices. Future research can further consider the different influences of heterogeneous characteristics of individuals’ military service experience on entrepreneurial decisions. Secondly, future research can use the case study method to conduct in-depth longitudinal research on individuals with military experience to track the dynamic process of formation, change, and influence of entrepreneurial decisions, and deeply insight into the imprinting mechanism of individual military experience on entrepreneurial choice. Finally, limited by data availability, this paper is unable to examine the impact of multiple imprinting interactions on individual entrepreneurial activities. Since individuals may be imprinted with diversified imprints in sensitive periods, individuals with military experience may bear the influence of multiple imprints such as family, technological environment, and political background. Calling for the research of Sinha et al. (2020), scholars can study the management and coordination activities carried out by multiple imprints of entrepreneurs in different stages to reveal the evolution process of the coexistence relationship between imprints.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Bei Lyu

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