Entrepreneurs' imprint: Survival and sustainable development of private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China

Xu, Li; Liu, Ming-xia; Yao, Hao Article Entrepreneurs' imprint: Survival and sustainable development of private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research Provided in Cooperation with: Springer Nature Suggested Citation: Xu, Li; Liu, Ming-xia; Yao, Hao (2019) : Entrepreneurs' imprint: Survival and sustainable development of private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China, Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, ISSN 2251-7316, Springer, Heidelberg, Vol. 9, Iss. 71, pp. 1-17, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40497-019-0182-2 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/261999 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ RESEARCH Open Access Entrepreneurs’imprint: survival and sustainable development of private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China Li Xu 1,2* , Ming-xia Liu 1 and Hao Yao 3 * Correspondence: xuli2015@whu. edu.com 1 School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China 2 School of Economics and Management, Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Abstract Recently, the private aesthetic plastic surgery industry in China is developing rapidly and has become the fourth largest service industry of the country which contributes to 1.2% portion of the national GDP and helps to improve employment. Thus, the sustainable development of the industry plays an important role in the sustainability of the Chinese economy which is a problem that cannot be ignored. From the perspective of organizational imprinting, this paper selects seven newly established private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in central China as research samples and applies semi-structured interview and content analysis to investigate the relationship between personal characteristics of entrepreneurs and survival trajectories of these hospitals. Results show that entrepreneurs’imprint takes effect in the course of establishing a new hospital through entrepreneurial motivation and initial strategy. Specifically, entrepreneurs’age, educational background, geographical identity and industry experience all contribute to the entrepreneurial success. In addition, entrepreneurs’imprint may be effective in the initial and early stage and then fades away with environmental changes. Corporate strategy is a useful complement to entrepreneurs’imprint afterwards. Keywords: Entrepreneurs’imprint, Aesthetic plastic surgery hospital, Sustainable development, Entrepreneurial motivation, Initial strategy Introduction In recent years, China has experienced an unprecedented period of rapid development, and with people’s living standards greatly improved, aesthetic plastic surgery, therefore, has become the fourth largest service industry after real estate, car sales and tourism of the country. As of 2018, the number of aesthetic plastic surgery practitioners in China has exceeded six million, and the market size of the industry has reached 17 billion yuan. Aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals are springing up in various regions in China, and a large number of professional cosmetic surgeons and nonprofessional entrepreneurs have founded hospitals in this upsurge of entrepreneurship. However, in the early growth of some new aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals, the problems of weak viability and high closure rate are common due to the “liability of newness”encountered (Stinchcombe, 1965). They cannot achieve a “unique resource base”to generate distinctive capability (Brush, Greene, & Hart, 2001) nor sufficient legitimacy to survive © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Journal o f Globa l E ntre p reneurshi p Researc h Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40497-019-0182-2 and grow (Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002). Thus, the sustainable development of aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China is a real challenge. For them, the setting up environment is similar, but the founders are different. Do these differences affect the survival and development of the hospital? This is a problem worth exploring and is also the research question of this paper. The organizational imprinting theory originated from sociology and has been widely used in explaining the phenomenon in the field of economics and management in recent years. It is a theory of “tracing back to the source,”which means that the initial conditions affect the future development trajectories. Thus, we may attempt to explore the effective factors from the start of an entity. It is also a history-based view in assessing the impact by using historical cases or data; for example, Johnson (2007) has researched the founding of Paris Opera under Louis XIV to unpack the imprinting process. In the field of organizational studies, the imprinting theory has been used to analyse the networks (Sullivan & Ford, 2013), organizational turnover (Burton & Beckman, Burton, & O'Reilly, 2007) and individual career (McEvily, Jaffee, & Tortoriello, 2011). In the field of entrepreneurship, scholars probed into the initial conditions such as entrepreneurs or entrepreneurship environment to investigate the impact on the consequences of entrepreneurship, which is fully in line with the purpose of this study. A long history of research in entrepreneurship has demonstrated that entrepreneurs’ characteristics play a pivotal role in the entrepreneurial success (Bamford, Dean, & McDougall, 2000; Boeker, 1989; Eisenhardt & Schoonhoven, 1990). In the Chinese context, Liang, Zou, Song, et al. (2017) examined the formation and development process of the electronic commerce (E-commerce) industry in a village of Guangdong Province, indicating that resource endowment and personal characteristics of entrepreneurs are sources of imprint on the development of the industry. Zhu and Cao (2017) studied the P2P financial industry of China and discovered that industry experience of entrepreneurs has a positive imprint on the sustainable development of the industry. Although these inquiries have helped us understand the impact of entrepreneurs’personal characteristics on new ventures or new industry, we still know little about how these characteristics imprint on the latter, which needs a specific mechanism to explain. In addition, as an emerging industry, the aesthetic plastic surgery industry has been paid little attention among Chinese management scholars whereas its rapid development has aroused great attention and interest from the world. Therefore, our research intends to explore the impact of entrepreneurs’characteristics on the survival and development of nascent and private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China from the perspective of organizational imprinting, so as to reveal the sustainable development path of the industry. Our research contributes to the literature in three ways. First, we propose a dynamic mechanism of entrepreneurs’imprint through the mediation of entrepreneurial motivation and initial strategy, which takes effect in the initial stage of development trajectory and fades away then. Second, we indicate that for entrepreneurs of aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals, age, geographic identity and previous industry experience are more important factors than educational background in determining the success of the hospital. Thirdly, we may conclude that entrepreneurs’ imprint is a crucial factor for entrepreneurial success; nonetheless, the effect of the environment at the inception is critical as well. Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 2 of 17 The rest of this article is as follows. We first reviewed the literature on organizational imprinting in general and entrepreneurs’imprint in particular and then introduce the method and data we adopted. Next, based on the survey and interview data obtained, we did a thorough analysis and come up with the dynamic model of entrepreneurs’imprint. At last, we conclude this article by summarizing our findings and contributions and discussing future research. Literature review The concept of organizational imprinting In 1873, Spalding (1954), a British biologist, discovered that birds tend to follow the first moving object they see at birth. German biologist Lorenz (1935) called this behaviour imprinting, believing that imprinting originated in the early and short stages of animal life and had a lasting impact. American sociologist Stinchcombe (1965) pioneered the introduction of the concept into the field of organizational research in 1965. After a long period of development, Marquis and Tilcsik (2013) defined the concept of organizational imprinting in 2013. They believed that “organizational imprinting is a process. In a short sensitive period, the organization has formed characteristics that match the specific environment, although the subsequent environment has changed, these characteristics continue to have an impact on the organization”(p.195). Since then, as one kind of historical view, organizational imprint has attracted great attention from the management community and has been widely used in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship, international business, organizational learning and change, especially in explaining the economic, management, and social phenomenon in emerging economies and countries in transition (Wang & Xie, 2016). The source of organizational imprinting The main source of organizational imprinting are the environmental conditions at the founding period and the founder of the organization (Simsek, Fox, & Heavey, 2015). The external environmental factors at the time of establishment are an important part of organizational imprinting, including the industry, institution, economy and ecological condition (Geroski & Portugal, 2010). Previous studies have shown that institutional conditions in a particular period are the mainstream of imprinting research. In the early stage of establishment, organizations must match the external institutional environment in order to ensure positive development. For example, Johnson (2007) believes that institutional conditions shape and restrict the strategic choices of the founders of the Paris Opera House. At the same time, the economic and technological conditions in a specific period will also leave a mark on the future behaviour pattern of the organization. Stinchcombe (1965), however, argues that organizations established in a particular period are significantly different in structure from those established in other periods. The founders are the original shapers of the organization. They not only bring knowledge and experience to build the initial structure and culture of the organization, but their ideology and behaviour pattern are also reflected in various aspects of the organization development (Mintzberg & Waters, 1982; Schein, 1995). Burton and Beckman et al. (2007) believe that the experiences of the founders or founding teams Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 3 of 17 determine the breadth and width of future senior managers and business development. Baron, Burton, and Hannan (1999) claim that the founder’s own characteristics will affect the future development of the organization in the way they make initial decisions and choose the exact strategy based on their personal background and experience, which is maintained by organizational inertia and institutionalization. Marquis and Qiao (2018) have researched private entrepreneurs in China and found that the communist ideology of some leaders affects the internationalization of the firms. Entrepreneur’s imprint on organizational survival and development In the early stage of the organization’s establishment, it is often faced with the dual pressure of resource constraints and legitimacy lacking (Zhao & Ma, 2016). Entrepreneurs play an important role in how to obtain all kinds of required resources under special environmental conditions and have an important impact on the sustainable development of the follow-up. Why in the same special period, some organizations develop positively, while others are facing rapid decline or even bankruptcy, which is closely related to entrepreneurs’industry experience, market preference and strategic choices. Burton, Sørensen, and Beckman (2002) found that entrepreneurs from highprofile enterprises have obvious advantages over other entrepreneurs in capturing industry information and controlling industry risks. They gain more resources and opportunities from their own industry background and have strong risk control ability, which is conducive to the sustainable development of enterprises. In an empirical research, Li and Wang (2017) found that entrepreneurs of “famous enterprises”and “famous schools”origin are conducive to enterprises to obtain venture capital, among which, “famous enterprises”origin is more significant than “famous schools”origin. Yang, Xue, and Niu (2011) found that the stronger the correlation between entrepreneurs’previous industry experience and new ventures founded, better corporate performance can be achieved. Zhou (2014) found that entrepreneurs’previous industry experience can positively identify entrepreneurship opportunities and is further positively correlated with the capture of opportunities. In addition, some scholars, such as Zhao and Sun (2013), believe that entrepreneurs’industry experience has a threshold impact on new venture development, which is a positive impact within the threshold and negative impact beyond the threshold. Methodology and data Nowadays, with the emergence of a large number of aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals, many hospitals have closed down without surviving the initial stage. Some of them were founded by entrepreneurs or teams from a professional background, while others by non-medical or non-aesthetic plastic surgery professionals. With the continuous improvement of national institutional system and market supervision, the industry experience and professional background of entrepreneurs are gradually reflected and brought into play, affecting the brand influence of hospitals and the recognition of consumers. Although some scholars, such as Zhu and Cao (2017), have verified that entrepreneurs’ industry experience has a positive correlation with the sustainable development of enterprises from the perspective of organizational imprinting, Liang et al. (2017) have taken Taobao village in Jieyang, Guangdong province of China, as an example and Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 4 of 17 found that the initial imprinting at different stages will affect the different growth paths of enterprises. Unlike E-commerce and other industries, the aesthetic plastic surgery industry is highly professional. Generally speaking, only those who know this industry very well or have previous experience dare to enter into it. Therefore, does the new organization (hospital) in this industry bear the special founder’s imprint? There is little literature on aesthetic plastic surgery development from the perspective of imprinting until now. Eisenhardt (1989) pointed out that case studies are suitable for answering explanatory and exploratory questions in areas that have not yet been fully explained and from which extract theories and principles. Based on this, our study reveals the relationship between the individual characteristics of entrepreneurs and the survival and development of hospitals by investigating the founding and development process of private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in a city of Hubei Province for a period of time. Sample The case study objects of our study are all selected from a city of Hubei Province. The city is the deputy central city of Hubei Province, ranking second in the overall strength of Hubei Province, with a permanent population of 4.15 million. At present, apart from some developed coastal cities, the city’s aesthetic plastic surgery industry ranks first among all the prefecture-level cities in central and southern China which is a representative of cities of the same size and strength. Before 2015, there were only a few professional aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in the city. After that, several new hospitals emerged, and especially in 2017 and 2018, a plethora of new hospitals emerged in a blowout. Some of them survived and continued to develop, while others disappeared rapidly. We randomly choose seven aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in the city as our samples. They were all established from January 2016 to April 2018 and they are all newly established hospitals from scratch. In the follow-up survey, there are not only surviving new hospitals, but also failing ones. It is a good way to avoid survivor bias and hindsight bias. The GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) 2016/2017 Global Report (2017) clearly points out that start-ups/organizations refer to enterprises/organizations that have not been established for more than 42 months, that is, three and a half years. Data collection In China, patterns of traditional culture and interpersonal communication are deeply rooted in the behaviour of Chinese entrepreneurs, through which to shape the “personality”of enterprises. For the founders, our study mainly collects information concerning age, geography identity, educational background and previous industry experience because these four aspects of personal characteristics are time-sensitive and fit with the conditions under which imprint takes effect (Simsek et al., 2015). For the development of the hospital, based on Zhu and Cao (2017)’s research that is also carried out in the context of China and from the perspective of organizational imprint, our study mainly collects seven indicators. They are transaction score, revenue score, popularity score, technical score, brand effect, hospital scale and survival time. These seven factors reflect the specific features of the aesthetic plastic surgery industry of China and match with the real business context when we interviewed the founders what are the most important factors to operate a hospital. In order to obtain data about entrepreneurs, we conducted Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 5 of 17 in-depth interviews every 6 months from June 2016 to June 2018. The reason why we conducted time-interval follow-up survey is because imprinting is time-sensitive to trace the development trajectory of new hospitals, and besides, research on organizational imprinting encourages data of a time span so as to observe the influence of the past on the present and the future. Liang et al. (2017) have surveyed the development of Taobao village in Jieyang, Guangdong province of China, for six times from November 2014 to August 2016, mainly by interview and observation. Marquis and Qiao (2018) obtained data with a 10-year time span (2-year interval) to indicate the ideological imprinting of Maoism on internationalization of Chinese firms. Table 1provides descriptive information on the participating founders. The interviews lasted 1–1.5 h. Due to the professionalism of aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals, many founders are particularly sensitive to the business model and marketing data and refuse to disclose too much. For such interviewees, we discuss and verify the data to different personnel. For the data collection of hospital development, we mainly rely on the disclosure of the founder and other second-hand information, such as news media and hospital websites. For hospital survival time, hospital size and other indicators, we obtain through field observation. Table 2lists the measurement of entrepreneurs’characterisitics. There are four indicators: age, geographical identity, educational background and industry experience. To be specific , entrepreneurs aged 30 and below are assigned a score of 1 point, 31–40 years old 2 points and over 40 years old 3 points, respectively; this is simply because research shows entrepreneurs over 30 years old are more likely to succeed than entrepreneurs under 30 (Unger, Rauch, Frese, et al., 2011). Among them, a US study of 270 successful entrepreneurs from 2007 to 2014 suggests that the average age of the most successful entrepreneurs is 45, which means the golden age of entrepreneurship is middle age (Daily & Johnson, 1997). Besides, Table 1 Description of sample Survey time Hospital Founding time Registered capital Current state June 2016 QW* Jan. 2016 0.3 million RMB Open YT* Jan. 2016 2 million RMB Open HM* Feb. 2016 10 million RMB Open Dec. 2016 QW* Jan. 2016 0.3 million RMB Open YT* Jan. 2016 2 million RMB Open HM* Feb. 2016 10 million RMB Open Jun 2017 QW* Jan. 2016 0.3 million RMB Open YT* Jan. 2016 2 million RMB Close down HM* Feb. 2016 10 million RMB Open BM* Feb. 2017 N/A Open Dec. 2017 QW* Jan. 2016 0.3 million RMB Open HM* Feb. 2016 10 million RMB Close down BM* Feb. 2017 N/A Close down ZA* Aug. 2017 N/A Open June 2018 QW* Jan. 2016 0.3 million RMB Open ZA* Aug. 2017 N/A Open AL* Feb. 2018 N/A Open MA* Apr. 2018 16 million RMB Open Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 6 of 17 entrepreneurs who are local citizens, come from other cities of Hubei province, and from other provinces are given 3 points, 2 points and 1 point, respectively, because native entrepreneurs have more geographical advantages and social networks, which is easier to access all kinds of resources and information needed for founding a new venture. The previous industry experience of entrepreneurs can be divided into three categories: experience of private hospitals, experience of public hospitals and non-experience of hospitals.Theyaregiven3points,2pointsand1point, respectively, because extant research has shown that similar career experiences before and after entrepreneurship are more conducive to the success of entrepreneurship (Beckman et al., 2007). Table 3lists measurement for development of sample hospitals. All seven indicators are measured on the scale of 1 point. Data analysis Starting from June 2016, two of the authors conducted semi-structured interviews and follow-up surveys on newly established aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals. Relevant data of sample hospitals at different stages were collected. These data were obtained through in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and confirmed by internal staff. The deadline for interviews was June 2018, with a total of five interviews conducted. Table 4lists out the score of entrepreneurs’characteristics each based on the measurement in Table 2. We can see that the entrepreneur of HT* scores most. The rest of the entrepreneurs get roughly the same score except the entrepreneur of Bo Mei (BM*). Table 5lists out the score of the development of hospitals based on the measurement in Table 3. Every hospital gets a total score added up from seven dimensions that are most important to the operation of an aesthetic plastic surgery hospital. The turnover of each hospital Table 2 Measurement for entrepreneurs’characteristics Indicator Measurement Entrepreneurs’ characteristics Age ≥40 years, 3 points 31–40 years, 2 points ≤30 years, 1 point Geographical identity Local citizen, 3 points Provincial, 2 points Outer province, 1 point Educational background Master/Ph.D. of aesthetic plastic surgery, 3 points Clinical undergraduate, 2 points Non-medical specialty, 1 point Industry experience Private hospital, 3 points Public hospital, 2 points Inexperience, 1 point Table 3 Measurement for development of hospitals Indicator Measurement Development of hospitals Turnover Monthly turnover per 1 million(RMB) = 1 point Net profit Monthly net profit per 1 million(RMB) = 1 point Popularity Monthly customers per 100 = 1 point Technique Monthly new technique adopted per 10 counts = 1 point Brand effect Monthly advertising cost per 100,000 (RMB) = 1point Scale effect A branch hospital founded = 1 point, No branch hospital founded = 0 point Survival time Open = 1 point, close down = 0 point; the higher the score, the longer survived Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 7 of 17 fluctuates. The net profit of every hospital is about 20% average except for those who failed. New techniques adopted and advertisement investment ensure high popularity and customer flow of the hospital. However, to expand and set up a branch does not make much difference among nascent hospitals, and the scale effect is not obvious compared with promotion and innovation. Survival time is a good indicator to the operation and development of the hospital. The higher the score, the longer survived and developed. Table 6integrates contents of Tables 4and 5to provide an overall view of the development of each hospital from June 2016 to June 2018, but we simply can not find a correlation between the score of the entrepreneur’s characteristics and that of Table 4 Score of entrepreneurs’characteristics Hospital Age Geographical identity Educational background Industry experience Total score Entrepreneurs’ characteristics QW* 2 (37 years) 31 39 HT* 3 (43 years) 32 311 HM* 1 (29 years) 32 28 BM* 1 (27 years) 11 14 ZA* 2 (35 years) 3 3 (master) 2 10 AL* 1 (30 years) 22 27 MA* 2 (31 years) 3 3 (PhD) 2 10 Table 5 Score of the development of hospitals Hospital Turnover Net profit Popularity Technique Brand effect Scale effect Survival time Total June 2016 QW* 0.7 0.2 0.4 0.2 3 0 1 5.5 YT* 0.5 0.1 0.2 0.1 1 0 1 2.9 HM* 0.2 0.05 0.3 0.1 2 0 1 3.65 Dec. 2016 QW* 1.1 0.4 0.3 0.1 3.5 0 2 7.4 YT* 0.3 0.16 0.2 0.2 3.7 0 2 6.56 HM* 0.4 0.1 0.5 0.1 4 0 2 7.1 June 2017 QW* 1.9 0.8 1 0.2 5.5 0 3 12.4 YT* 0.1 −0.2 0.3 0 0 0 0 0.2 HM* 0.1 −0.3 0.3 0 1 0 3 4.1 BM* 0.2 −0.2 0.2 0 0 0 1 1.2 Dec. 2017 QW* 4.1 1.2 1.4 0.2 7.2 0 4 18.1 HM* 0.05 −0.15 0 0 0 0 0 −0.1 BM* 0.03 −0.2 0.1 0 0 0 0 − 0.07 ZA* 0.4 0.13 0.8 0.1 2 0 1 4.43 June 2018 QW* 3.5 1.5 2 0.1 7 1 5 20.1 ZA* 0.6 0.4 0.7 0 2.5 0 2 6.2 AL* 1 0.46 0.9 0.1 3 0 1 6.46 MA* 3 0.95 3.5 0.2 5 1 1 14.65 Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 8 of 17 imprinting, and how specific imprints unfold in various other contexts have not been touched yet. Our research of entrepreneur’s imprint in the context of aesthetic plastic surgery is, therefore, an attempt to open an avenue in studying entrepreneurial imprint in the Chinese context. A major contribution of our study is enriching the connotation of characteristics of the entrepreneurs in the specific aesthetic plastic surgery industry in China and presents the imprinting effect model of the entrepreneurs on the development trajectory of nascent hospitals in the industry. Although some literatures believe that the initial conditions of entrepreneurs have an impact on the development of the organization, there is no literature clearly figuring out the specific mechanism of the impacts. Therefore, based on the theory of organizational imprinting, our study constructs the mechanism of entrepreneur’s imprinting through the intermediary of entrepreneur motivation and initial strategy, which makes up the theoretical gap. Secondly, it enriches and expands the mechanism and boundary of the organizational imprinting theory and reveals the dynamic process of the entrepreneur imprinting in the aesthetic plastic surgery industry. Previous studies paid much attention to the survival and development of state-owned enterprises (Jia, Guang-Lih, & Man, 2019) while little attention has been paid to the private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China which can be regarded as a significant reflection of Chinese new economic reform. The emergence and booming of the industry was regarded as a derivative of the rapid development of society and continuous improvement of people’s living standards. In fact, it is not only the outcome of the environment, but also the outcome of the people living in that environment, especially the entrepreneurs; thus, we can conclude that it bears the dual imprints of the institutional environment and entrepreneurs. Thirdly, it provides a theoretical reference for the sustainable development of China’s aesthetic plastic surgery industry. As the fourth largest consumer hotspot in China, aesthetic plastic surgery industry has made important contributions to China’s economic development. According to statistics, the income scale of the industry was about 348 billion yuan in 2013 and increased to about 700 billion yuan in 2016. Despite the rapid development, the sustainable development of this industry is worthy of persistent attention because of its low vitality in the inception. Accordingly, our research attempted to summarize the process model of founding and developing private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals in China. In this model, entrepreneurs’imprint is particularly important for these hospitals. Therefore, it is crucial to improve the qualifications of founders, enhance their industry experiences and exploit their geographical identity advantages in the early stage of the entrepreneurship. Limitations and future research By applying structure interview and content analysis method, our research aims to study the relationship between the founder characteristics of private aesthetic plastic surgery start-ups and the survival and development of these hospitals in China. Our research’s limitations provide a scope for future research. Firstly, although we used a variety of sources of evidence to ensure the reliability and validity of the data, there may be retrospective bias due to the interview process. We asked founders of the hospitals to recall the experience and important events of the founding progress and this Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 15 of 17 may induce retrospective bias. Thus, future research may utilize more in-time way of data collection to avoid the retrospective bias of the sample. Secondly, our research paid attention to the process of entrepreneurial imprints, trying to explain the mechanism of entrepreneurial imprints on entrepreneurial success. Although the conclusion of our study shows that founders of new hospitals are closely related to the survival and development of hospitals, factors such as initial environment, national policy, industry competition and such can not be ignored. We expect a more integrated model of entrepreneurship imprints including all the above factors that should be made in later research. Thirdly, this study takes private aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals of the central deputy city of Hubei in central China as research sample, and it may lack in diversity and representativeness because of difficulty in obtaining reliable and high-quality data. Besides, considering the imbalanced regional development of China, future research needs to take samples from different parts of China or samples with more variety to induce a more nuanced result. Abbreviations AL*: Ao Lai; BM*: Bo Mei; E-Commerce: Electronic Commerce; GEM: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; HM*: Hua Mei; MA*: Mei An; QW*: Qian Wei; YT*: Ya Tai; ZA*: Zhong Ai Acknowledgements The authors would like to extend their gratitude to the seven entrepreneurs interviewed during the research. Thanks for their cooperation for providing the most precious data on founding and running an aesthetic plastic surgery hospital in China. Declarations We declare that the manuscript is original, neither previously published nor under concurrent consideration elsewhere. No conflict of interest exists in the submission of this manuscript, and the manuscript is approved by authors for publication. Authors’contributions LX developed the research idea, worked on the key section of the research and drafted the manuscript. ML was responsible for the methodology and project administration. HY carried out the data analysis and diagram drawing and helped to draft the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript. Funding This study was self-funded by the corresponding author and no fund was available from any authority. Availability of data and materials The dataset generated and analysed during the current study is not publicly available since it is based on a personal interview of respondents who do not want to disclose their names but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Author details 1 School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. 2 School of Economics and Management, Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China. 3 Central People’s Hospital of Yichang, Yichang 443002, China. Received: 3 June 2019 Accepted: 28 August 2019 References Bamford, C. E., Dean, T. J., & McDougall, P. P. (2000). An examination of the impact of initial founding conditions and decisions upon the performance of new bank start-ups. Journal of Business Venturing, 15(3), 253–277. Baron, J. N., Burton, M. D., & Hannan, M. T. (1999). Engineering bureaucracy: The genesis of formal policies, positions, and structures in high-technology firms. Journal of Law Economics & Organization, 15(1), 1–41. Beckman, C. M., Burton, M. D., & O'Reilly, C. (2007). Early teams: The impact of team demography on VC financing and going public. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(2), 147–173. Boeker, W. (1989). Strategic change: The effects of founding and history. Academy of Management Journal, 32(3), 489–515. Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 16 of 17 Brush, C. G., Greene, P., & Hart, M. M. (2001). From initial idea to unique advantage: the entrepreneurial challenge of constructing a resource base. The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), 15(1), 64–80. Burton, M. D., & Beckman, C. M. (2007). Leaving a legacy: Position imprints and successor turnover in young firms. American Sociological Review, 72(2), 239–266. Burton, M. D., Sørensen, J. B., & Beckman, C. M. (2002). Coming from good stock: Career histories and new venture formation. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 19, 229–262. Daily, C. M., & Johnson, J. L. (1997). Sources of CEO Power and Firm Financial Performance: A Longitudinal Assessment. Journal of Management, 23 (2), 97–117. Delmar, F., & Shane, S. (2006). Does experience matter? The effect of founding team experience on the survival and sales of newly founded ventures. Strategic Organization, 4(3), 215–247. Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–555. Eisenhardt, K. M., & Schoonhoven, C. B. (1990). Organizational growth: linking founding team, strategy, environment, and growth among U.S. semiconductor ventures, 1978-1988. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(3), 504–529. GEM 2016/2017 Global Report (2017). Available online: https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/gem-2016-2017-global-report. (Accessed on 5 Sept. 2018). Geroski, P. A., & Portugal, P. (2010). Founding conditions and the survival of new firms. Strategic Management Journal, 31(5), 510–529. Jia, N., Guang-Lih, H. K., & Man, Z. C. (2019). Public governance, corporate governance, and firm innovation: An examination of state-owned enterprises. Academy of Management Journal, 62(1), 220–247. Johnson, V. (2007). What is organizational imprinting? Cultural entrepreneurship in the founding of the paris opera. American Journal of Sociology, 113(1), 97–127. Lévesque, M., & Minniti, M. (2006). The effect of aging on entrepreneurial behavior. Journal of Business Venturing, 21(2), 177–194. Li, G., & Wang, Z. (2017). The pedigree of entrepreneurs and venture capital funding. Chinese Journal of Social Development, 3,28–52. Liang, Q., Zou, L., Song, L., et al. (2017). Organizational imprint, niche and growth of newly created enterprises--a qualitative study based on the perspective of organizational ecology. Management World, 06, 146–159. Lorenz, K. (1935). Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels. Journal Für Ornithologie, 83(3), 289–413. McEvily, B., Jaffee, J., & Tortoriello, M. (2011). Not all bridging ties are equal: Network imprinting and firm growth in the Nashville legal industry, 1933–1978. Organization Science, 23(23), 547–563. Marquis, C., & Tilcsik, A. (2013). Imprinting: Toward a multilevel theory. The Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 195–245. Marquis, C., & Qiao, K. (2018). Waking from Mao’s Dream: Communist Ideological Imprinting and the Internationalization of Entrepreneurial Ventures in China. Administrative Science Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839218792837. Mintzberg, H., & Waters, J. A. (1982). Tracking strategy in an entrepreneurial firm. Academy of Management Journal, 25(3), 465–499. Schein, E. H. (1995). The role of the founder in creating organizational culture. Organizational Dynamics, 12(1), 13–28. Simsek, Z., Fox, B. C., & Heavey, C. (2015). What’s past is prologue: A framework, review and future directions for organizational research on imprinting. Journal of Management, 41(1), 288–317. Soriano, D. R., & Castrogiovanni, G. J. (2012). The impact of education, experience and inner circle advisors on SME performance: Insights from a study of public development centers. Small Business Economics, 38(3), 333–349. Spalding, D. (1954). Instinct with original observations on young animals. British Journal of Animal Behavior, 2(1), 2–11. Stinchcombe, A. L. (1965). Social structure and organizations. In J. G. March (Ed.), Handbook of organizations (pp. 142–193). Chicago: Rand McNally. Sullivan, D. M., & Ford, C. M. (2013). How entrepreneurs use networks to address changing resource requirements during early venture development. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 38(3), 551–574. Unger, J. M., Rauch, A., Frese, M., et al. (2011). Human capital and entrepreneurial success: A meta-analytical review. Journal of Business Venturing, 26(3), 341–358. Wagner, J. (2004). Are Young and Small Firms Hothouses for Nascent Entrepreneurs? Evidence from German Micro Data. Applied Economics Quarterly, 50, 989. Wang, W. (2009). On the development path of plastic and aesthetic surgery in China. Chinese Journal of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery, 20,1. Wang, Y., & Xie, W. (2016). Lasting history: A literature review of organizational imprinting and prospects. Foreign Economies and Management, 38(12), 91–102. Yang, J., Xue, H., & Niu, F. (2011). Previous work experience, entrepreneurial opportunity and new technology enterprise performance--An interactive effect model and its enlightenment. Chinese Journal of Management, 8(1), 116. Zhao, H., & Ma, J. (2016). Founding environment, inward internationalization, and firm performance: Evidence from Chinese private enterprises. Journal of East-West Business, 22(4), 296–323. Zhao, W., & Sun, W. (2013). Study on the relationship between prior experience, entrepreneurial learning and entrepreneurial performance. Soft Science, 27(11), 53–57. Zhou, L. (2014). Family social capital, prior experience and entrepreneurial opportunity identification: Evidence from microenterprises. Science & Technology Progress and Policy, 19,87–91. Zhu, R., & Cao, L. (2017). A study on the relationship between industry experience of P2P entrepreneurs and sustainable development: From the perspective of organizational imprinting. Chinese Journal of Financial Development Research, 4,42–46. Zimmerman, M. A., & Zeitz, G. J. (2002). Beyond survival: Achieving new venture growth by building legitimacy. Academy of Management Review, 27(3), 414–431. Publisher’sNote Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Xu et al. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2019) 9:71 Page 17 of 17