The Impact of Social Capital and Entrepreneurship on Business Performance through Dynamic Capabilities in Chinese Cross-Border E-Commerce Enterprises

This study aims to investigate the impact of social capital and entrepreneurship on the business performance of Chinese small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce enterprises (SMCBEs) through the mediating role of dynamic capabilities, addressing the need to clarify the “resource-capability-performance” mechanism in the digital economy. Employing a stratified random sampling approach, data was collected from 572 SMCBEs in Henan, Chongqing, and Shenzhen, with empirical analyses conducted through reliability tests, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modeling (SEM).The empirical findings demonstrate that both social capital and entrepreneurship have significant positive effects on dynamic capabilities and business performance. Specifically, social capital positively influences dynamic capabilities (β= .18, p< .01) and business performance (β= .15, p< .01). Similarly, entrepreneurship significantly affects dynamic capabilities (β= .24, p< .01) and business performance (β= .13, p< .05). Furthermore, dynamic capabilities were verified to have significant mediating effects in both the relationship between social capital and business performance (β= .08, 95% CI=[ .05, .13]) and between entrepreneurship and business performance (β= .11, 95% CI=[ .07, .17]). This study extends the application of dynamic capabilities theory to the cross-border e-commerce context and provides practical implications for governments, industry associations, and enterprises to enhance SMCBEs’ competitiveness by optimizing social capital, cultivating entrepreneurship, and strengthening dynamic capability construction.