A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Financing Efficiency and Entrepreneurial Vitality: Evidence from Chinese College Students

Abstract

Entrepreneurial financing has a profound impact on young college students’ involvement in entrepreneurial practice and entrepreneurial performance. A certain amount of research literature about the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students has been accumulated, but the relevant analysis and research conclusions are not unified, which requires us to summarize general conclusions through the meta-analysis method. Based on 444,106 samples from 21 studies on the relationship between financing and entrepreneurship in college students from 2015 to 2022, this study conducts a meta-analysis on the relationship between their financial efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality. The moderating effects of five variables, entrepreneurial competence, entrepreneurial education level, age, entrepreneurial location environment and entrepreneur social capital are analyzed. The results of meta-analysis show that financing efficiency has a significant positive impact on the entrepreneurial vitality of college students. Entrepreneurial competence, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial location environment have significant positive moderating effects on the relationship between financing efficiency and the entrepreneurial vitality of college students, Financing effectiveness and availability have significant positive effects on entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial performance. On the basis of these conclusions, this study puts forward relevant suggestions from the perspective of government, universities and entrepreneurs.

1. Introduction

Since the First World Congress on Higher Education was held, increasingly complex and unstable world development has brought about immeasurable changes in the place, space and form of higher education, and the sustainable development of higher education is facing new challenges. As the largest developing country, China offers the world’s largest higher education, with more than 44.3 million people studying and 240 million people receiving higher education. The gross enrollment rate rose from 30 percent in 2012 to 57.8 percent in 2021. Higher education has entered a stage of universal development, and more people have access to higher education. At the same time, quality improvement and diversified development have become the theme of the new era of higher education transformation. China’s higher education has made continuous innovations in methods of education, school model, management systems and guarantee mechanisms, providing strong support for building the world’s important talent and innovation environment. For example, China continues to deepen the reform of innovation and entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities. In 2015, the Chinese government put forward the concept of “public entrepreneurship, people’s innovation” [1], through innovation to promote entrepreneurship, and through entrepreneurship to create more employment opportunities. In 2021, the “About Further Support the College Students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Guidance” initiative was launched, putting forward further promotion of public entrepreneurship as a key support to further implement innovation-driven development strategy. So far, colleges and universities across China have offered more than 30,000 courses and 11,000 open online courses on innovation and entrepreneurship education. They have hired 174,000 outstanding people in the industry as full-time and part-time teachers of innovation and entrepreneurship. More than 1.39 million college students from 1000 colleges and universities have participated in the National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for College Students. The China International “Internet Plus” College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition has been successfully held for seven sessions [2], attracting 6.03 million teams and 25.33 million college students from more than 120 countries and regions in five continents. To carry out innovation and entrepreneurship education has become an important means for colleges and universities to deepen education and teaching reform and cultivate students’ innovative spirit, entrepreneurial consciousness and practical ability in innovation and entrepreneurship. As a means of employment, entrepreneurship can not only solve the employment problems of college students and relieve the employment pressure faced by college students, but also promote employment and create more employment opportunities for society. College students are the major force of entrepreneurial activities, so supporting their innovative undertakings is of great significance. College students’ entrepreneurship has become a focus of attention, including from the government, universities, scholars, etc.

However, compared with developed countries, China’s higher education in innovation and entrepreneurship started later, and there are still some problems to be solved. Combined with the existing research results of relevant scholars, financing has become an important dimension in studying college students’ entrepreneurship. According to the Report on the Development of Chinese Youth Entrepreneurship (2021), 41.7 percent of young entrepreneurs believe that the biggest difficulty is still the problem of capital, and the voice of young entrepreneurs concerning the problem of financing is higher than in previous years. The report on employment of Chinese undergraduates in 2020 points out that more than half of self-employed graduates quit the start-up market within three years after graduation, and the main reason was poor financing channels. Therefore, although the government has given college students entrepreneurship discount loans and other preferential policies, over 50 percent college students still find it hard to raise money from banks and other financial institutions. The application threshold for relevant supporting policies is high, and venture capital is difficult to obtain, so lacking financing channels is still the biggest obstacle to today’s college students’ entrepreneurship. The literature research on the relationship between financing and college students’ entrepreneurship has accumulated to a certain extent, but the relevant research conclusions are not consistent, which cannot successfully guide the development of college students’ entrepreneurial careers. Therefore, the main significance of this paper is to make a meta-analysis of the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality, synthesize the previous research literature, and put forward more general conclusions, exploring the impact of relevant regulatory variables so as to provide suggestions and support for the development of the entrepreneurial career of college students. The main logical structure of this study includes a literature review and hypothesis proposal, research methods and data, empirical analysis, research conclusions and suggestions.

2. Literature Review and Research Hypothesis

2.1. Literature Review

For college students, the relative lack of funds, sites and resources related to entrepreneurship is an important factor restricting their willingness to start a business. In terms of entrepreneurial funds, financing channels and financing effectiveness have always attracted relevant researchers’ attention. For example, American economists Modiglian and Mille established the MM theorem, and then introduced the elements of corporate income tax into the theorem, proposing that the optimal financing structure of new ventures should be 100% debt financing, rather than issuing stock financing [3]. Later, Robichek put forward the balance theory, believing that the optimal financing structure of enterprises should be the result of rational decision-making after weighing the tax effect and the cost of financial crisis caused by high debt ratio [4]. Most entrepreneurial enterprises of college students are in the start-up stage, which determines that they may prefer debt financing, which is consistent with the main MM theorem. Hogan and Hutson found that, compared with debt financing, technology enterprises prefer equity financing, and different financing decisions of new ventures will produce different financing efficiency [5]. With the development of college students’ enterprise, especially science and technology enterprises, entrepreneurs may prefer equity financing when the development of enterprises reaches a certain scale.

For college students, entrepreneurial vitality can generally be divided into two dimensions: whether college students are willing to choose entrepreneurship, and the effectiveness of enterprises established by college students who have already started businesses. Bird first proposed the concept of entrepreneurial intention, which is a kind of behavior that guides entrepreneurs to pursue a certain goal and continuously invest energy, time, money and action [6]. Thompson gave a clearer definition of entrepreneurial intention: individuals have entrepreneurial intention, influence other team members through personal charm, organize and establish their own team, and carry out entrepreneurial behavior to the end through the unremitting efforts of team members [7]. Klotz pointed out that entrepreneurial willingness includes the entrepreneur’s ability to take on all risks, whether the external environment has a far-reaching impact on the entrepreneur, and whether the individual has open and creative thinking [8]. Fan Wei believes that under the background of the economic system and economic development, individual entrepreneurial intention mainly consists of two parts: entrepreneurial desire and entrepreneurial feasibility. Among these, entrepreneurial desire mainly refers to entrepreneurs’ personal characteristics, namely, entrepreneurial orientation, achievement orientation and self-respect, while entrepreneurial feasibility mainly refers to personal control and sense of responsibility [9]. The purpose of college students’ entrepreneurship is to satisfy their entrepreneurial motivation through entrepreneurial practice, such as obtaining specific results or returns. In the existing literature on entrepreneurship research, some scholars have conducted studies on the measurement of entrepreneurial performance. For instance, Balaji and Chakravarthy suggested that a new product should include non-financial indicators such as R&D capability and corporate reputation in the measurement of its entrepreneurial performance [10]. In view of the difficulty in obtaining entrepreneurial performance data for college students, some scholars propose to measure entrepreneurial performance by entrepreneurs’ subjective feelings towards entrepreneurial results [11]. Chinese scholars have also measured entrepreneurial performance from different perspectives. For example, Chaohong et al. proposed an entrepreneurial performance evaluation index including four dimensions, finance, customers, internal operation and employees, through interviews with five enterprises and a literature analysis [12]. To sum up, this study will focus on the two dimensions of college students’ entrepreneurial willingness and entrepreneurial performance, so as to analyze the influencing factors on college students’ entrepreneurial vitality.

2.2. Hypotheses Development

This study divides financing efficiency into two parts: financing effectiveness and financing availability. At the present stage, the sources of start-up financing for college students in China mainly focus on commercial bank loans, government and university start-up funds, social venture capital and private equity funds. Different financing sources have different levels of effectiveness in solving financing needs, thus having different impacts on improving college students’ entrepreneurial willingness and entrepreneurial performance. Financing effectiveness refers to whether a certain financing channel can effectively solve the financing difficulties in the process of college students’ entrepreneurship, which is also the focus of this research and analysis. Financing availability mainly refers to the variety of channels that subjects can choose and whether they can obtain financing from a channel at a lower cost, that is, the financing threshold in the traditional sense. This study will judge the impact of financing efficiency on the entrepreneurial vitality of college students through quantitative analysis of financing effectiveness and financing availability in the literature studied, and then obtain the degree of correlation between the two.

As for the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality, the existing research conclusions are basic and general. At present, there are many research projects on the impact of financing on entrepreneurial activities in academia, but the research conclusions are not consistent. The mainstream view is that financing support has a positive impact on entrepreneurial activities. For example, Qian and Haynes have studied whether the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) subsidy policy in the United States is related to the increase in enterprise birth rate in high-tech industries [13]. SBIR is a policy that uses the federal government’s R&D budget to fund research and development for small and medium-sized businesses. The results show that SBIR has a significant positive impact on the growth in the number of high-tech startups, and the relationship between them is linear. Woolley and Rottner believe that a country’s technological and economic initiatives help to establish the entrepreneurial infrastructure needed for new companies, and economic initiatives are positively correlated with the establishment of early nanotechnology companies and the growth of nanotechnology enterprises in the region [14]. It is generally believed that financial support policies can create a better business environment and encourage entrepreneurs to take entrepreneurial risks [15]. In addition, financial support can reduce the debt and cost pressure of entrepreneurs, increase the ability of entrepreneurs to obtain resources, and increase the number of start-ups [16]. As Wang Fuming believes, “As an important policy means of entrepreneurship support policy, financial support policy has a profound impact on entrepreneurship [17].” Based on the above analysis, this study makes the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

Financing efficiency is positively correlated with entrepreneurial vitality.

Entrepreneurial intention is a subjective attitude of entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs towards entrepreneurial activities, and a general description of the number of people with characteristics similar to those of entrepreneurs, as well as their attitude and ability regarding entrepreneurship. In this study, college students’ entrepreneurial willingness is mainly measured by their own entrepreneurial enthusiasm. Duan Lihua pointed out that “government financial input and preferential tax support have a significant effect on improving the entrepreneurial intention of young college students and improving the conversion rate of entrepreneurial intention.” It can be seen that effective financing channels are the core elements of the entrepreneurial environment faced by college student entrepreneurs and the availability of effective financing at the initial stage of entrepreneurship can further improve the enthusiasm of college students who are already in the stage of entrepreneurship, and help to improve the entrepreneurial intention of college students who have not yet invested in entrepreneurial activities, thus enhancing the entrepreneurial vitality of college students [18]. Therefore, this study makes the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2a (H2a).

Financing effectiveness is positively correlated with entrepreneurial intention.

There is no consensus on the effect of the effectiveness and cost of entrepreneur financing policies on entrepreneurial performance. The mainstream view is that more effective financing support policies have a positive impact on entrepreneurial performance. For example, Shariff’s research finds that effective government subsidy policy has a significant positive impact on the relationship between start-up valuation, financing, management, market performance and growth performance [19]. Pergelova and Angulo-Ruiz found that government financial support can promote the performance growth of entrepreneurial enterprises, and pointed out that the performance of entrepreneurial enterprises largely depends on the ability of entrepreneurs to mobilize existing enterprise resources, and policy makers should adopt certain policy tools to help entrepreneurial enterprises establish competitive advantages in the market [20]. Financing is one of the most critical links in the process of entrepreneurship. Sheng Yuxue pointed out that “insufficient capital is the main bottleneck restricting the entrepreneurship of College students in China, which has become a consensus of all sectors of society.” Therefore, the degree in solving the financing problem is directly related to the realization of entrepreneurship goals.

Hypothesis 2b (H2b).

Financing effectiveness is positively correlated with entrepreneurial performance.

A single financing channel, high threshold and high cost will lead to the failure of the financing goals of college student entrepreneurs, and thus affect the entrepreneurial performance. It is important to establish and improve laws and regulations to support the financing of private small and medium-sized enterprises, to seriously implement the ideas on encouraging, supporting and guiding the development of the non-public economy, such as individual and private enterprises issued by the State Council, and to further integrate with “Article 36 of non-public economy”—Noncompliant policies and regulations [21]. Financiers have rich channels in the financing process, which will help entrepreneurs to choose the channel with lower cost and most suitable for entrepreneurial projects among the different channels, or to achieve their financing goals through the combination of different financing channels, thereby improving entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, this study makes the following assumptions:

Hypothesis 3a (H3a).

Financing channel availability is positively correlated with entrepreneurial performance.

Extensive financing channels reflect the superiority of an entrepreneurial environment. College student entrepreneurs can obtain financing from multiple financing channels, achieve financing goals, and improve entrepreneurial performance, which not only helps to improve the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of college students who are starting their own businesses, so that they can further firm up their entrepreneurial goals and continue to start their own businesses, but also helps to have a positive impact on college students who have entrepreneurial intentions but do not carry out entrepreneurial activities [22]. So a superior financing environment enables more people to participate in college students’ entrepreneurial activities, and improve the overall entrepreneurial willingness and entrepreneurial vitality of college students in China. Therefore, this study makes the following assumptions:

Hypothesis 3b (H3b).

Financing channel availability is positively correlated to entrepreneurial intention.

In order to fully study the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students, this study introduces entrepreneurial competence as a moderating variable to analyze its moderating effect on financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality. Shane & Venkataraman (2015) believed that opportunity is one of the most critical factors in the entrepreneurial process, and timely perception and identification of new entrepreneurial opportunities plays a positive role in the rapid growth of enterprises, which requires entrepreneurs to develop a strong ability to identify opportunities, namely entrepreneurial competence [23]. Bruton (2017) points out that in the special environment of China’s transformation and upgrading, the ability to identify opportunities is particularly important. Bruton also puts forward that, although China’s market economy has achieved rapid development, it is still not mature enough [24]. Some scholar believes that the ability to realize opportunities is an important aspect of entrepreneurial ability. Entrepreneurs must quickly commercialize opportunities and generate benefits. During this period, it is critical for entrepreneurs to integrate the internal and external resources of enterprises and rationally arrange the time and space for enterprise development. In this case, it is more important to promote the opportunity of commercialization for the survival and growth of new ventures. Chandler believes that opportunity identification and resource integration ability can promote entrepreneurial performance [25]. Xinran believes that entrepreneurial performance will show different results due to the heterogeneity of college students [26]. Wu Ting believes that the performance of new ventures is measured by their ability to acquire, process and use information in the context of the Internet era [27].

Barney believes that the source of entrepreneurship and profit is entrepreneurial competence, and excellent entrepreneurial competence can bring lasting competitive advantage to the company [28]. In other words, entrepreneurial competence subtly determines the market advantage of entrepreneurial enterprises. When entrepreneurial motivation is stable, entrepreneurial competence will affect entrepreneurial performance [29]. In his research, Han Ziang found that in the entrepreneurial process of college students, different educational backgrounds, education levels and entrepreneurial scale will affect the performance of entrepreneurial enterprises, and different entrepreneurial industries will also make entrepreneurs in different entrepreneurial environments, thus making college students have different levels of entrepreneurial competence [30]. Having sufficient entrepreneurial competence can efficiently provide products and services needed by the market and solve the problem of entrepreneurial performance and industrial profitability. Kamm believes that only with proper entrepreneurial public relations and network capabilities can the enterprise train run in a high, fast and accurate manner, keep the enterprise running steadily and maintain better corporate performance [31].

In reality, although college students with the same educational background in the same region face basically the same financing environment, their entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial performance are also different due to the different subjective conditions of entrepreneurs. For example, entrepreneurs with strong practical ability, rich social experience and patience, and strong resistance to setbacks tend to have better entrepreneurial performance and are more likely to achieve success [32]. Therefore, we define the subjective personal ability of entrepreneurs as entrepreneurial competence. According to the existing research literature, we summarize the main components of entrepreneurial competence as entrepreneurial mentality, social experience, practical ability, knowledge reserve, creativity and other personal characteristics, and make the following assumptions:

Hypothesis 4 (H4).

The stronger the entrepreneurial competence, the stronger the positive correlation between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality.

In recent years, academic circles have clearly defined the concept and dimension of entrepreneurial location environment [33]. Richard analyzed this from the perspective of entrepreneurs’ interests, believing that entrepreneurial location environment includes a good financing platform, market competition mechanism and government policy support. Zhang Yong and Hou Ximing put forward the idea that the entrepreneurial location environment of college students is the sum of the social and cultural environment, science and technology environment, economic development environment and political ecological environment [34]. Yang Yansheng believes that entrepreneurial location is composed of the public opinion environment, education environment and policy environment [35]. It can be seen that entrepreneurial location environment is a relatively comprehensive concept, and the same entrepreneurial subject often has different entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial performance under different entrepreneurial location environment [36]. Therefore, the following assumptions are made in this study:

Hypothesis 5 (H5).

The better the entrepreneurial location environment, the stronger the positive correlation between entrepreneurs’ financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality.

According to the theoretical viewpoint of Nahapiet and Ghoshal (2008), social capital can be defined as the sum of explicit and implicit resources acquired by entrepreneurs through various behaviors within laws and moral codes during entrepreneurial activities [37]. The content dimension of social capital can be divided into the cognitive dimension, relational dimension and structural dimension. The so-called cognitive dimension is the psychological cognition of entrepreneurs concerning entrepreneurial behavior, the relational dimension is the identification of various relationships, norms and ideas in entrepreneurial activities, and the structural dimension is the linked status of the social relationship network. The above dimensions of social capital content can cover entrepreneurs’ social capital behavior, resources and psychology. In the traditional sense, social capital is mainly that which university students can obtain other than the economic capital of entrepreneurial resources, and includes social networks. Social capital plays an important role in the process of college students’ entrepreneurship. Rich and high-quality network resources often enable college students to obtain various forms of support in the process of entrepreneurship [38]. For example, through guidance in entrepreneurial skills or knowledge, or the financing obtained through networking, effective social capital can not only enable college students to obtain more practical entrepreneurial support, but also enhance their confidence and enthusiasm in entrepreneurship and their entrepreneurial willingness, thus improving the vitality of social entrepreneurship.

Based on the empirical analysis of the current situation of China’s economic transformation, the results show that social capital is an important factor affecting the success of both MNCS and local enterprises [39]. For college students’ entrepreneurial groups, social capital can not only provide college students with initial funds, but also provide them with great spiritual support, which is particularly important in the initial stage of college students’ entrepreneurship [40]. To sum up, this study proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 6 (H6).

Compared with college student entrepreneurs who lack social capital, entrepreneurs with relatively rich social capital have a stronger positive correlation between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality.

Introducing entrepreneurship education as a moderating variable [41], due to different regions, different universities and different family environments, the entrepreneurial education of college students is different, so their entrepreneurial ability and willingness are also different [42]. The data shows that college students’ entrepreneurial ability is generally higher in colleges and universities which attach importance to entrepreneurship education or carry out more and more comprehensive entrepreneurship education courses [43]. On the other hand, entrepreneurship education also comes from family, parents or elders’ guidance for college students. Entrepreneurship education often has a key impact on college students’ entrepreneurial willingness and ability [44]. This study divides entrepreneurship education into two parts: family and school, and whether or not college students receive entrepreneurship education and the degree of education are taken as moderating variables, so the following hypothesis is made:

Hypothesis 7 (H7).

Compared with graduates with a lower education level, entrepreneurs with a higher education level have a stronger positive correlation between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality.

The graduate entrepreneurs referred to in this study are mainly undergraduates, postgraduates and graduates within three years of graduation. Studies show that college students of different ages often have different entrepreneurial abilities, and thus different entrepreneurial performance [45]. Therefore, we introduce age as a moderating variable, and divide college student entrepreneurs into two age groups, older than 23 years old and younger than 23 years old [46]. According to past experience and entrepreneurial data, older entrepreneurs tend to have richer social capital, a more mature psychological state and more comprehensive entrepreneurial skills and experience, and their entrepreneurial vitality tends to be higher [47]. Therefore, we make the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 8 (H8).

Compared with entrepreneurs younger than 23 years old, entrepreneurs older than 23 years old have a stronger positive correlation between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality.

3. Methods and Data

3.1. Meta-Analysis Method

Meta-analysis is the “analysis of analysis”, and over the past 40 years, meta-analysis has been developed in the fields of medicine, biology, and education, despite heavy criticism and skepticism. In management, meta-analysis technology has gradually become an important research tool. AGUINIS et al. [48], after reviewing nearly 200 meta-analysis reports, pointed out that the number of meta-analysis articles published in the field of management is increasing year by year. Patience et al. [49], also pointed out that the annual citation rate of meta-analysis articles is much higher than that of the top 500 ordinary articles in the field of management. It can be seen that the recognition and influence rate of meta-analysis technology in research are gradually increasing. The scientific contribution of meta-analysis, however, should not be judged solely by its popularity in research. The advantages of meta-analysis compared with traditional single evidence-based articles are as follows: any single empirical research cannot be perfect, and the results of the research have certain contingencies and limitations, and meta-analysis can help researchers to create super samples to integrate research results, and be able to correct measurement error and sampling error, the result of research design and research background distortion [50], and these lead to “truths” in a field, which in turn refine the theory and promote further empirical research. Entrepreneurship researchers focused on entrepreneurial opportunities, entrepreneurial resources and the entrepreneurial situation, have discussed how to realize efficient identification, assessment, access to and use of opportunities and resources, in order to realize value creation [51] in the exploration process, producing a large number of published or unpublished primary research results; the advancement of the entrepreneurship research process depends on the researchers’ understanding of these results and summary. Meta-analysis should be applied in the field of entrepreneurship to evaluate the real and stable relationship between bi-variables, which has been widely recognized by scholars at home and abroad [52]. The current meta-analysis research in the field of entrepreneurship is also undergoing a transformation from the standard bivariate relationship research, and has begun to construct an overall framework and compare, extend and create theories [53]. Entrepreneurship as an independent discipline has evolved to the point where researchers can outline meta-analyses. In 1987, the American Academy of Management formally included entrepreneurship as an independent research field in the management discipline. Later, SHANE et al. [54] also clearly proposed the legitimacy of entrepreneurship as an independent research field from the perspective of opportunity. After more than 30 years of development, the knowledge system of entrepreneurship has been continuously broadened and improved, and the meta-analysis research results in the field of entrepreneurship have been fruitful. Based on this, this study concludes that: (1) An overview of meta-analysis in the entrepreneurial field is needed to evaluate the existing knowledge base in the entrepreneurial field. Since the topics that are often analyzed by meta-analysis are more mature and popular, and/or considered more important by researchers, an overview of the meta-analysis research topics is helpful for researchers to evaluate how much work has been done in the field of entrepreneurship, and thus to have a rough grasp of the research status and future development in the field of entrepreneurship. (2) It is urgent to point out the increasing standards in the application of meta-analysis methods. If there is no consistent and high standard in the quality evaluation of meta-analysis research, it will greatly hinder the knowledge synthesis in entrepreneurial research. Therefore, it is necessary to point out the way to improve the meta-analysis research in terms of model construction, theory verification and expansion, implementation procedures, index reporting and analysis method selection. In addition, it is necessary to promote the accumulation and convergence of knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship. By carefully designed and executed meta-analytical studies that meet rising standards, researchers can easily determine the state of knowledge development on a given topic and better resolve disputes that have not yet been agreed upon. More importantly, meta-analytical studies that meet the increasing standards can be an important basis for constructing theories and testing surrogate and competition theories in the field of entrepreneurship.

3.2. Literature Search

Firstly, we deal with concept definition. In order to ensure the integrity of literature collection, before conducting meta-analysis this study firstly defines the concepts of financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality to determine the scope of literature retrieval. In this study, variables that are the same or similar to the variables studied are selected as literature retrieval keywords, which include “financing, financing environment, financing policy, financial support, financing efficiency, financing channels, financing source and availability of financing, financing plan, social capital and entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial motivation, age of entrepreneur, education, entrepreneurial energy and entrepreneurial performance, entrepreneurial intention” as keywords. Not only are single keywords searched, but the keywords are also combined with entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial performance for further retrieval.

Secondly, we deal with literature search and inclusion criteria. The procedures for retrieving relevant literature in this study are as follows: first, literature published from January 2015 to June 2022 is searched in this study. Second, a keywords search was made of Chinese journal full text databases, Chinese excellent master’s dissertations full text database, Chinese excellent doctoral dissertations full text database and conference discussion library, and preliminary screening was conducted according to the abstracts of relevant literature retrieved. The screening criteria are as follows: (1) The research objects are college students or college students within 3 years of graduation, including junior college students, undergraduate students, master’s students, doctoral students and overseas students. (2) The dependent variable is entrepreneurial intention or entrepreneurial performance. (3) There must be an empirical research process. (4) Variables in the empirical study must include data types required by meta-analysis, such as R value, coefficient β, degree of freedom, Chi-square value, T test value, F test value and other indicators. (5) The data in the literature cannot be repeated samples. Thirdly is reading the title and abstract, browsing the content of the articles and selecting the literature on the relationship between financing and college students’ entrepreneurship, and excluding other literature. Through the above retrieval, this study finally obtained 21 relevant reports, all of which are journal papers.

Thirdly comes an explanation of the endogeneity problem. Meta-analysis is a comprehensive analysis of the results of existing research literature. Therefore, in order to avoid endogeneity problems, this study preferentially selects literatures using a two-stage least squares method and instrumental variable method to solve endogeneity problems in literature selection, so as to ensure that the influence of endogeneity problems on the research results and final conclusions can be avoided in the process of meta-analysis.

3.3. Effect Size Integration and Literature Variable Information Summary

The collected literature is shown in

Table 1. Summary of relevant literature. “-” indicates that control variables are not or are not reported in the literature.

Author & Date	Sample Size	Control Variable	Research Method	Z	SE
Shi-jie gao (2020) [57]	348	Gender, age, education background, entrepreneurial industry, entrepreneurial scale	Multiple regression	0.7999	0.0538
Yang Daojian (2019) [58]	418	Entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurial environment	Structural equation	0.6535	0.0491
Ann Meichen (2016) [59]	979	Entrepreneurial financing environment, education environment	Structural equation	0.6963	0.0320
Wu Lishui (2021) [60]	308	Entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial environment	Regression equation	0.3205	0.0573
Liu Zhaomin (2020) [61]	285	Age, education background, scale of entrepreneurship	Multiple regression	0.6155	0.0595
Chen Wanming (2019) [62]	187	Age, education background, gender	Multiple regression	0.0761	0.0737
Mu Weiqi (2020) [63]	208	Age, gender, education level	Multiple regression	0.1511	0.0698
He Hongguang (2015) [64]	625	-	Multiple regression	0.2908	0.0401
Xu Yanxie (2022) [65]	366	-	Binary logistic regression	1.6888	0.0525
Huang Yabing (2021) [66]	443	-	Multiple logistic regression	0.4132	0.0477
Chen Xinmiao (2019) [67]	451	-	Multiple regression	0.1277	0.0472
Ni Dazhao (2021) [68]	471	Growth environment, parents’ occupation, gender, professional background	Multiple linear regression	0.0774	0.0462
Duan Lihua (2021) [69]	905	-	Multiple linear regression	0.1563	0.0333
Sun Junhua (2021) [70]	5868	Level of economic development, literature time, sample size, entrepreneurial category	Meta-analysis	0.4860	0.0131
Ge Hongxiang (2020) [71]	733	-	Mediation model	0.7788	0.0370
Zhang Qin (2017) [72]	400	-	Binary logistic regression	0.2597	0.0502
Sheng Yuxue (2021) [73]	58,900	Family, region, individual, school	Probit regression	0.1040	0.0041
Zhang Xiue (2019) [74]	89,202	Age, gender, education level	Hierarchical generalized linear model estimation	0.0983	0.0033
Wang Fuming (2017) [75]	282,334	Entrepreneurship index, industry attributes	Meta-analysis	0.2090	0.0019
Zou Yanan (2019) [76]	185	-	Regression analysis	0.1934	0.0741
Liu Enpei (2021) [77]	490	-	Structural equation	1.8857	0.0453

. The literature included in the meta-analysis differs in quantity and effect value, so we need to convert the effect value of all literature into a unified indicator [55]. This paper conducts a quantitative analysis on the entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial performance of college students, both of which are continuous random variables, and most of the included literature provides correlation coefficients R and coefficients β in their empirical analysis, so this study will document the variables in the data into a unified correlation coefficient R, and then the effect value is calculated by formula. The transformation process is as follows.

Firstly, for the literature that gives coefficient β but does not give correlation coefficient R, coefficient β is converted into correlation coefficient R uniformly. In the transformation process, an empirical formula proposed by Peterson is adopted [56]. In the meta-analysis, standardized regression coefficients are used to estimate correlation coefficients. The specific calculation process is shown in Formula (1):

R = β + 0.05λ

(1)

In this formula, R is the predicted correlation coefficient, β is the standardized coefficient of multiple regression, λ is 1 when β is non-negative, and 0 when β is negative.

Secondly, the effect value and standard error of each paper are calculated through Fisher-Z transformation, and the specific process is shown in Formulas (2) and (3):

$$\mathrm{Z} =\frac{1}{2} \times \mathrm{Ln}\left(\frac{1 + \mathrm{r}}{1- \mathrm{r}}\right)$$

(2)

$$\mathrm{SE} =\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{n} -3}}$$

(3)

In Formula (2), Z is the effect value after conversion, and R is the effect value in the original literature. In Formula (3), SE is the standard error after transformation, and n is the sample size.

4. Empirical Analysis

4.1. Publication Bias Test

Publication bias is the bias caused by researchers, reviewers, and editors’ reliance on the direction and strength of research results when selecting papers for publication, i.e., studies with statistically significant positive results are published more easily or more quickly than studies with non-significant negative results. Publication bias has a prominent feature which is “selectivity”, so that the process of publication is no longer a random event (theoretically, every study should have an equal chance to be published), and the publication of some studies is suppressed. Therefore, a publication bias test should be carried out in the process of meta-analysis. In this study, funnel plot, Begg test and Egger test are used to test bias. Funnel plot generally takes effect value (or logarithm of effect size) as abscis and standard error as ordinate (or sample size) to form a scatter plot. According to the principle of funnel plot, if the graph presents a symmetrical inverted funnel shape, there is no publication bias. If the funnel plot is asymmetrical or incomplete, it indicates publication bias.

The funnel plot of the publication bias test of this study is shown in Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3. Most of the studies are concentrated in the middle of the funnel plot and evenly distributed on both sides of the midline. At the same time, Egger and Begg test results (p values are greater than 0.05) also show that there is no publication bias, so the research conclusion is more reliable. Therefore, there is basically no publication bias in the literature included in this study.The detailed research model is shown in Figure 1.The details of literature screening and collection are shown in Figure 2. The effect value distribution of financing efficiency on entrepreneurial intention is shown in Figure 3. The effect value distribution of financing efficiency on entrepreneurial performance is shown in Figure 4. The effect value distribution of financing efficiency on entrepreneurial vitality is shown in Figure 5.

4.2. Heterogeneity Test

In the meta-analysis, heterogeneity test is also an essential step due to differences in subjects, interventions and measurement methods among multiple independent studies. When heterogeneity exists in studies, it is generally necessary to use the random effects model to correct it. In this study, heterogeneity was tested by Q value test and I² test, and the results are shown in

Table 2. Begg and Egger test result.

Relationship between Variables	Begg Test p-Value	Egger Test p-Value
Financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality	0.6982	0.6063
Financing efficiency and entrepreneurial intention	0.6481	0.4218
Financing efficiency and entrepreneurial performance	0.6384	0.4922

.

Q value is the normalized sum of squares of effect size, and follows the normal distribution with the degree of freedom of (K − 1). The larger the Q value, the smaller the p value, indicating the greater heterogeneity of the meta-analysis. I² reflects the proportion of heterogeneity in the total effect size. When the value of I² is between 75% and 100%, it indicates that there is a great difference in meta-analysis. It can be seen from

Table 3. Heterogeneity test result.

Model	Point Estimation	Document Number	Confidence Interval (95%) Upper Limit Lower Limit		p-Value	Q-Value	I2-Value	Standard Error
Fixed effect model	0.1827	21	0.1798	0.1856	<0.0001	4811.97	99.58%	0.0015
Random effect model	0.4794	21	0.4156	0.5431	<0.0001	4811.97	99.58%	0.0325

that Q value is 4811.97 (p < 0.0001) and I² value is 99.58. That is, 99.58% of the heterogeneity is determined by the effect value, and 0.42% of the variation is caused by random error, which further indicates that the sample has some heterogeneity, so the random effect model should be selected for testing.

4.3. Main Effect Test

Firstly, according to the random effect model point estimation results in Table 3, the effect value (random effect model) of financing efficiency and entrepreneurial performance of college students is 0.4794, which has passed the statistical significance test (p < 0.0001), so hypothesis H1 is supported. According to Cohen, Quan Chaolu and other researchers, when the effect value is greater than or equal to 0.25, it is moderate, and when the effect value is greater than or equal to 0.4, it is high. It can be seen that financing efficiency has a strong positive impact on the entrepreneurial vitality of college students, and financing efficiency plays an important role in college students’ entrepreneurship.

Secondly, this study further analyzes the two dimensions of financing efficiency and the two dimensions of entrepreneurial vitality, and the results are shown in

Table 4. Meta-analysis of financing efficiency and financing vitality.

Category	Point Estimate	Sample Size	Heterogeneity			Double Tail Test		Confidence Interval (95%) Upper Limit Lower Limit
			Q-Value	Df(Q)	I2-Value	Z-Value	p-Value
Financing effectiveness and entrepreneurial intention	0.3716	91064	946	6	99.69	3.1361	<0.0001	−0.0784	0.8997
Financing effectiveness and entrepreneurial performance	0.4946	353423	3189	13	99.94	4.1424	<0.0001	0.2606	0.7287
Financing availability and entrepreneurial willingness	0.4541	58900	1970	8	99.82	2.6474	<0.0001	0.1179	0.7902
Financing availability and entrepreneurial performance	0.5301	69331	3131	10	99.98	3.4049	0.0007	0.2250	0.8353

.

According to the data in Table 4, the point estimate effect value of financing effectiveness and entrepreneurial intention, financing effectiveness and entrepreneurial performance, financing availability and entrepreneurial intention, financing availability and entrepreneurial performance are 0.4148, 0.4946, 0.4541 and 0.5301, respectively, and pass the statistical significance test (p1, p2, p3 < 0.0001, p4 = 0.0007 < 0.001). Therefore, it is assumed that H2a, H2b, H3a and H3b are all supported.

4.4. Test of Moderating Effect

In order to further test the influence of five moderating variables on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students, this study adopts the method of meta-regression to analyze and test.

Meta-regression analysis is developed from meta-analysis. The independent variable of meta-regression analysis is the characteristic variable of the published literature, which is also the moderating variable to be studied in the meta-analysis, and the dependent variable is the influence effect value among the variables studied in the meta-analysis. From the results, the meta-regression analysis reflects the influence of the moderating variables selected in the literature on the significance of the measurement results, and these moderating variables with significant influence are important factors for our in-depth study of this problem. The meta-regression estimation equation used in this study is multiple regression equation, as shown below:

Effect Size = α + β1 × E1 + β2 × E3 + β3 × E3 + β4 × E4 + β5 × E5 + ε

In this formula, α is a constant term, β is the influence coefficient of moderating variables, E1 is entrepreneurial competence, E2 is entrepreneurial education, E3 is age, E4 is entrepreneurial location environment, E5 is social capital, and ε is residual. In this study, Rstudio software is used to conduct meta-regression analysis on the moderating effects of the above five moderating variables. The regression results are shown in

Table 5. Results of meta-regression.

Category	Coefficient	SE	Z-Value	p-Value	Confidence Interval (95%)
					Upper Limit	Lower Limit
Constant	−0.3783	0.3130	−1.2083	0.2269	−0.9918	0.2353
Entrepreneurial competence	0.5243	0.2600	2.0168	0.0437	0.0148	1.0338
Entrepreneurship education	0.5108	0.1545	3.3057	0.0009	0.2079	0.8136
Age	−0.0339	0.3620	−0.0936	0.9255	−0.7434	0.6756
Entrepreneurial location environment	0.7893	0.3553	2.2213	0.0263	0.0929	0.4857
Social capital	−0.1782	0.3817	−0.4669	0.6406	−0.9263	0.5699

.

According to the meta-regression results in Table 5, in the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students, the influence coefficients of age and social capital are −0.0339 (p = 0.9255 > 0.05) and −0.1782 (p = 0.6406 > 0.05), both of which are not significant. This indicates that the age of entrepreneurs and social capital have no significant moderating effect on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students. Therefore, hypothesis H8 and H6 are not supported. The influence coefficients of entrepreneurial competence, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial location environment are 0.5243 (p = 0.0437 < 0.05), 0.5108 (p = 0.0009 < 0.001), 0.7893 (p = 0.0263 < 0.05), respectively, which shows that these three variables have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students, namely when entrepreneurs have stronger entrepreneurial competence, have received good entrepreneurial education, and choose a better entrepreneurial location environment, financing efficiency plays a greater role in promoting the entrepreneurial vitality of college students, assuming that H4, H5, and H7 are supported.

5. Research Conclusions, Suggestions and Prospects

5.1. Research Conclusions

Under the situation that the existing research conclusions on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students are inconsistent, this study is based on 444,106 samples of 21 pieces of empirical research literature, including 13 on the impact of entrepreneurial performance, with a sample size of 353,423, and eight on the impact of entrepreneurial performance, with a sample size of 90,683. This study conducted a meta-analysis from two dimensions of financing efficiency and two dimensions of entrepreneurial vitality, and finally the comprehensive effect value of financing effectiveness and entrepreneurial intention is 0.4148, p value is less than 0.0001. The comprehensive effect value of financing effectiveness and entrepreneurial performance is 0.4946, and the p value is less than 0.0001. The combined effect value of financing availability and entrepreneurial intention is 0.4541, and the p value is less than 0.0001. The comprehensive effect value of financing availability and entrepreneurial performance is 0.5301, and the p value is 0.0007. The results of the meta-analysis confirm that the two dimensions of financing efficiency have a significant positive impact on the two dimensions of entrepreneurial vitality. In addition, through meta-regression analysis, this study found that entrepreneurial competence, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial location environment have a significant positive impact on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students, while age and social capital have no significant moderating effect on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students.

As innovation and entrepreneurship have become the focus of attention from all walks of life, the effect of start-up financing efficiency on entrepreneurial vitality of college students discussed in this study is of great theoretical and practical significance. First of all, meta-analysis is rarely used in research on innovation and entrepreneurship, but its advantages in creating super samples to integrate research results and correct errors make it suitable for research on innovation and entrepreneurship. Therefore, the application of meta-analysis in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation to evaluate the stable real relationship between bidirectional variables has been widely recognized by scholars at home and abroad. This study aims to explore component analysis application in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship practice, actively expands the application extension of the meta-analysis method, and uses the meta-analysis method to solve the related disputes about the impact of financing efficiency on entrepreneurial vitality. This provides rigorous and logical empirical research support for the formulation of innovation and entrepreneurship policies, and further deepens academic understanding of the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality. To some extent, the long-term controversy on the relationship between financing support policies and entrepreneurship is eliminated. On the basis of comprehensive analysis of research conclusions in a variety of literature, a relatively reliable conclusion is obtained, and the conclusion that financing efficiency has a positive impact on entrepreneurial vitality is confirmed.

5.2. Suggestions

First of all, based on the above research, the conclusion is that entrepreneurial competency plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality. As a result, college student entrepreneurs should strive to improve their entrepreneurial ability, enrich their entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial practice experience, so as to enhance their entrepreneurial competence [78]. Before starting business, they should actively participate in entrepreneurship related activities or entrepreneurship education courses to obtain professional entrepreneurship guidance. In the process of entrepreneurship, the city with better entrepreneurial location environment should be chosen as the entrepreneurial location, so as to obtain better entrepreneurial resources [79], attaching importance to the role of financing, actively broadening financing channels, realizing the diversification of financing, and thereby enhancing entrepreneurial enthusiasm, firming up entrepreneurial confidence, and improving entrepreneurial performance [80].

Secondly, according to the above research conclusions, financing efficiency is positively correlated with entrepreneurial vitality, and entrepreneurial location environment and entrepreneurial education play a positive regulating role, so the government should improve the policy support and pertinence for college students to create a better entrepreneurial location environment [81]. At present, college students’ entrepreneurship policy support is mainly manifested in the preferential tax and credit, and the government should broaden the financing channels for college students [82], introduce relevant policies to guide social capital to actively participate in the financing activities of college students’ entrepreneurship, enhance the effectiveness of the financing support policy, and ensure that entrepreneurs finance effectively through lower costs and more channels [83]. In addition, the government will increase funding and policy support to promote higher education in entrepreneurship and innovation, increase the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities, and use entrepreneurship education to promote the entrepreneurial willingness and entrepreneurial performance of young college students [74].

Thirdly, according to the above research conclusions, entrepreneurship education plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between financing efficiency and the entrepreneurial vitality of college students. Therefore, against the background of “encourage startups and innovation”, universities should actively carry out innovation and entrepreneurship education and organize various “innovation and entrepreneurship” competitions [84]. However, looking at the implementation effect, innovation and entrepreneurship education is mostly taught by professional teachers or counselors who have no entrepreneurship experience, and the teaching content is mostly limited to theoretical knowledge [85]. Therefore, colleges and universities should actively introduce entrepreneurial mentors with entrepreneurial practice experience, and carry out targeted entrepreneurship education that can improve college students’ entrepreneurial ability, so as to boost the self-confidence of college student entrepreneurs and enhance their entrepreneurial willingness [86]. In terms of capital, colleges and universities can set up college venture funds according to the actual financing needs of college student entrepreneurs, in order to provide financial support for entrepreneurs, thus improving the entrepreneurial performance of college student entrepreneurs [87].

5.3. Main Motivation and Contribution

First of all, college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship is an important cause focused by national policies and of highly concern to society. Entrepreneurship can not only inject vitality into the economy, but also provide more jobs, relieve the employment pressure on college students and promote the economic development of society. Therefore, the theme of entrepreneurship in this study fits the focus of social attention. On the other hand, financing difficulty has always been the main factor restricting the entrepreneurship of college students. The research on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality mainly discusses the important methods and channels for improving the entrepreneurial willingness and performance of college students from the perspective of financing. It can provide an important reference for the formulation of government policies, the financing choice of college students and subsequent research of scholars in innovation and entrepreneurship.

Secondly, this study uses innovative meta-analysis research methods, and the problem of the logical analysis of the college students’ entrepreneurial component system is based on the existing literature research results from comprehensive research, and to seek a more consistent conclusion, yuan analysis method of large sample characteristics and innovation in entrepreneurship research’s large sample data requirements is carried out. In previous studies, meta-analysis methods are mainly applied to medical research. Therefore, this study explores the application of new methods in the field of entrepreneurship research, and provides reference for subsequent research.

5.4. Prospects

The third World Congress on Higher Education, themed “Reinventing Higher Education for a Sustainable Future”, was held in Barcelona, Spain, in May 2022. The conference released ‘Beyond the Limits: New ways to reinvent higher education’, stating that “in the face of an increasingly complex and challenging global situation, we need to take a quantum leap to reinvent higher education, drawing a blueprint for the future sustainable development of higher education in the world “. Innovation and entrepreneurship education can provide students with a more comprehensive learning experience, promote cross-disciplinary openness and exchange, meet the needs of young students for individual growth, and cultivate high-quality talents in inquiry, critical thinking and creativity, so as to fulfill the commitment to sustainability and social responsibility.

It follows that the future research on the relationship between financing efficiency and entrepreneurial vitality of college students still has important theoretical significance and practical value. In future research, the following points deserve attention. Firstly, the problem with meta-analysis is that the explanation of pooled effect sizes is only meaningful when there is no effect modification, and the paradox is that we cannot judge whether there is effect modification. In other words, the final combined effect size is only some kind of mixed effect, which does not necessarily have a causal explanation [88]. The second point is the sample size. Although the meta-analysis results show that the sample size has no significant impact on the empirical results, the sample size of existing studies varies greatly, with 282,334 samples being the largest and 185 samples being the smallest. Thirdly, the primary data of this study only comes from China, and although it has a certain representativeness, this is not enough to fully reflect the problem of college students’ entrepreneurship around the world. Therefore, this study will further focus on the European and American developed countries and southeast Asia, Africa and other developing countries concerning college students entrepreneurship, obtain more comprehensive data, further analyze college students’ entrepreneurship problems around the world, and then obtain more instructive conclusions. Fourthly, although the variable data obtained in this study are all from previous literature on the relationship between financing and college students’ entrepreneurship, the variables in this literature, such as entrepreneurial location conditions, social capital recovery, competency and specific entrepreneurial intention, are all subjective evaluations obtained from questionnaires or offline interviews of college students. Although the subjective feedback of college students has a certain reference value, it is not completely objective [89]. The subjective feelings of college student entrepreneurs may be different from the facts, which is one of the inherent problems of the meta-analysis itself. Therefore, in future meta-analysis, more samples should be collected to obtain more comprehensive data, so as to draw more objective and convincing conclusions. Therefore, the sample size and its representativeness are still worthy of attention. Follow-up research can carry out large-scale follow-up on college student entrepreneurs, which is not only conducive to obtaining more scientific theoretical research results, but also to the adjustment and improvement of relevant policies.