The concept of positive organizational behavior, which can be described as the reflection of positive psychology in organizational life, contributed to the conceptualization of psychological capital (Avey et al., 2008, 2009; Luthans et al., 2008). Psychological capital could be perceived as a holistic and positive mental state that a collective of individuals share in an organization.

There are various definitions of psychological capital, related to the positive psychological state of an individual’s and/or a collective’s development. In one of these definitions, psychological capital is considered as the state of having the confidence, or in other words, self-efficacy to provide the necessary effort to succeed in difficult tasks. According to another definition, psychological capital is a positive expectation about the possibility of success in the present and future, or in other words, the state of being optimistic. In addition, psychological capital is defined as the ability to be determined to reach, and to move toward new ways to achieve success, or in other words, to carry hope. Finally, it can be said that psychological capital is conceptualized as one’s ability to recover when faced with problems or possible troubles and to show an insistent attitude during such times, i.e., to be persistent or to be durable Luthans et al. (2006a,b).

Based on these different, but highly interrelated conceptualizations, scholars have agreed that psychological capital has four basic dimensions: self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience Luthans et al. (2007). Self-efficacy is a faithful belief a person owns, to control the events and solve the problems one faces in organizational life, with the positive motivation and cognitive resources benefiting future prospects Stajkovic and Luthans (1998). It is also defined as the individual’s positive belief toward the abilities he has while doing and working Stajkovic and Luthans (1998). Optimism can be defined as good expectations for the future (Carver and Scheier, 2002a,b). At the core of such definition, individuals relate positive events as a result of internal, permanent and common causes Seligmanand Csikszentmihalyi, 2000. Hope, the third dimension of psychological capital, interacts with goal-oriented energy that arises from a plan to meet specific goals with a sense of accomplishment Snyder (2000). Finally, resilience is seen as the person’s ability to cope with many negative situations (such as obstacles or uncertainty) to re-bounce or to eventually lead to success (Luthans et al., 2006b). It is a state in which positive change and development are displayed in the face of adverse situations such as difficulty, uncertainty, conflict, failure, etc. Masten (2001), Luthans (2002) act. Erkus and Findikli (2013).

The relationship between psychological capital and organizational outcomes has been widely investigated from various angles in the literature. It has been stated that it provides organizations with a competitive advantage. It has further been suggested that psychological health might be associated with political skills both positively and negatively (Bedi and Skowronski, 2014). However, the detailed cause-effect relationships have been under-discussed. That said, although knowledge about how an individual’s political skills might affect another person’s psychological state has been accumulated, few have explored the ways in which a person’s positive psychological state could influence his/her own political skills’ functionality, especially in an entrepreneurial context Luthans et al. (2004).

During a new venture, an entrepreneur’s, as well as other employees’ psychological capital may have a positive impact on their performance. However, their way of influence may be different. For example, the psychological capital of an entrepreneur may directly and positively affect the functionality of his/her political skills, enabling him/her to better motivate internal employees and build better social networks, thereby positively affecting new venture performance. Nevertheless, other employees’ psychological capital may make them identify with the new venture and be willing to contribute more to it, which may have a positive impact on new venture performance. Intuitively, people’s emotions can interact and influence each other, thus, the psychological capital between entrepreneurs and other employees may actually affect the interactions people have with one another, and other employees’ psychological capital may indirectly affect the functionality of the entrepreneur’s political skills. To avoid confusion, this study only discusses the impact of entrepreneurial psychological capital on the functionality of political skills and new venture performance.

Reasonably based on the discussion above, the political skills used to achieve people’s organizational goals are likely to be influenced by psychological capital, which refers to the qualities of individuals to reveal their strengths. Therefore, in this study, the relationship between psychological capital and political skill is proposed.

Existing research suggests that people’s personality and ability characteristics affect the construction of their social networks (Douglas and Ammeter, 2004; Wei et al., 2012; Ferris et al., 2017; Burt et al., 2018). Though many political skill scholars in organization behavior have repeatedly mentioned the important role of individual political skill in the process of interpersonal action in the organizational context (Ferris et al., 2005, 2007), we still do not conclusively know why different political skill levels could lead to different network structure/attributes.

The existence of strong and mutually beneficial exchange ties can promote the mobilization of social network resources (Fombrun, 1982; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). The social exchange theory suggests that human relations are based on rational choice (Thibaut and Kelley, 1959; Homans, 1961) and constitute a resource-exchange relationship – an exchange of goods, both material and non-material, such as the symbols of approval or prestige. The theory also assumes that actors achieve their goals by exchanging resources with others, and these goals are often beyond their reach (Lawler and Thye, 1999). Here, resource exchange can be regarded as social exchange. The main aspect of social exchange is that it takes place between individuals who have the characteristics of self-interest and mutual need – two or more actors have what the other needs, and they can independently decide whether, and how much, to exchange (Aldrich and Zimmer, 1986). Persons who give much to others try to get equally as much from them (reciprocity), and persons who get much from others are under pressure to give equally as much back. This process of influence tends to work out at equilibrium in the exchanges (Homans, 1961). Appraisal of whether or not a new relationship is attractive and valuable takes place through a comparison of the ratio of the rewards and costs (which is calculated by their self-standards) of the connection (Thibaut and Kelley, 1959). Following one person’s initial contact with another person, the formation and maintenance of the relationship depends on the rewards/costs ratio/level they have experienced or expected. Individuals’ behavior in the social interaction process is often highly selective – they seek to produce the most satisfactory results, and once they discover that they cannot reach their goals, they will choose to give up the relationship (Thibaut and Kelley, 1959). The core idea of social exchange theory is that two actors voluntarily exchange their own resources. However, there are also involuntary exchange relationships, for example, ones lacking a good trading partner, taking place when the actors are not satisfied with the partner but have to maintain the existing exchange relationship. Drawing on the above social exchange theory, logic dictates that the traits and definitions of political skill determine that self-interested actors, with a variety of private goals, will usually prefer to be in contact or exchange resources with politically skilled individuals for three reasons: the first is that politically skilled individuals are more likely to discover and identify others’ needs and interests due to their social astuteness and savviness, so politically skilled individuals can make an impression to others suggesting that they own some resources needed by others, by sending appropriate signals in social situations. This may effectively attract others’ attention and interest. The second reason is that politically skilled individuals are more likely to gain others’ trust as they are, or appear to be, sincere, genuine and honest. These traits signal to others that being in contact, or exchanging resources with such individuals is safe and beneficial. The third reason is that politically skilled individuals are more likely to make favorable impressions to others, suggesting that they can provide the needed resources or help to others due to their interpersonal influence ability. To interpret the above logic in detail, we discuss the ways in which the four dimensions of political skill influence social networks size, diversity, and structural holes, as follows:

Many researchers agree that social entrepreneurship is embedded in social networks (Aldrich and Zimmer, 1986) (pp. 3–23). The literature clearly indicates that entrepreneurs often obtain resources through their personal social relationships (Adler and Kwon, 2002). Entrepreneurs’ social networks can help them identify business opportunities (Batjargal, 2010), activate resources (Batjargal and Liu, 2004), and gain legitimacy (Elfring and Hulsink, 2003). From the resource-based view, entrepreneurs’ personal networks can be conceived as new ventures’ special resources that can bring competitive advantage to ventures. Network size or sum of connections with other persons and organizations with resources needed for ventures can influence or determine whether new ventures can acquire sufficient resource from external networks with the ventures development. A larger network may provide more valuable and rare resources than a smaller one, and may better meet the new ventures’ resource demand. Therefore, a different network size may lead to a different venture performance. Due to this reasoning, we suggest that:

Entrepreneurs’ social networks usually include different types and characteristics of network members, and different types of members often have different types of resources. Therefore, the diversity of entrepreneurs’ networks will affect the scope of their access to resources (He et al., 2013). New ventures usually have higher uncertainty and entrepreneurs often cannot know the types and channels of resources needed in the future. Therefore, they need networks with higher diversity (Elfring and Hulsink, 2007). Because networks with higher diversity can reduce this uncertainty, new ventures can obtain various resources and help through different types of network members (Renzulli et al., 2000). In addition, a higher social network diversity can reduce the cost of searching for resources (McEvily and Zaheer, 1999). If the diversity of the entrepreneur’s social network is low, the entrepreneur needs to spend more time searching for resources from other networks (He et al., 2013). Thus, the more diverse the entrepreneur’s social network, the more it can expand their horizons and increase the reputation of the venture among the network members (Podolny, 2001). The whole impact of network diversity on a new venture will have a positive effect on its performance. Based on the above analysis, we make the following proposition:

In a social network with few structural holes, information and resources are usually shared by most members (Granovetter, 1995). In contrast, in a social network with more structural holes, information and resources are often not fully shared, and entrepreneurs have an advantage in obtaining those informal resources and information (Burt, 1992; Batjargal, 2007). For example, entrepreneurs can get early access to information about new products, new markets and new channels (Batjargal et al., 2013) as they can play the role of long-distance network bridge connections (Stam and Elfring, 2008; Batjargal, 2010; Ferris et al., 2012). In the entrepreneur’s social network, mutual trust among members may also generate customer recommendations (Granovetter, 2000). In social networks with more structural holes, entrepreneurs can also play an intermediary role, such as connecting suppliers and buyers (Burt, 1992), which also gives them access to more diverse resources (Stam and Elfring, 2008; Batjargal, 2010). If entrepreneurs can obtain more raw materials, funds and technology, then they can choose more ambitious strategies, continue to develop new products and expand market space, all of which will increase long-term returns for new ventures (Batjargal and Liu, 2004). The extensive existence of structural holes gives entrepreneurs more choice and freedom. Entrepreneurs can obtain resources through separated network clusters and they do not need to compromise with powerful members in order to obtain resources (Burt, 1992). The existence of structural holes results in isolated network members in the entrepreneur’s social network, which will encourage entrepreneurs to obtain different emotional support (Batjargal et al., 2013). For example, relatives, classmates, friends, and partners of entrepreneurs are usually isolated from each other. They can provide different social and emotional support to satisfy entrepreneurs’ needs (Churchill et al., 1987). These types of emotional support increase entrepreneurs’ confidence and help them focus on improving new venture performance (Krueger and Dickson, 1994). If entrepreneurs can integrate network clusters that are far apart, this can lead to some positive results, such as promoting the integration of different knowledge and resources, establishing alliances, and obtaining venture capital (Granovetter, 1973; Batjargal, 2007). These integrations are likely to bring rapid revenue growth to ventures (Batjargal et al., 2013). Summarizing these arguments, we propose that:

As previously mentioned by some scholars – business is a political arena (Gray and Ariss, 1985; Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Jackall, 1988). The conception of political skills is derived from this idea and it is defined as the ability to understand and influence the behavior of others (Ahearn et al., 2004; Ferris et al., 2005, 2007). Because of the new venture’s liability of newness (Stinchcombe and March, 1965), lack of necessary resources and legitimacy, entrepreneurs need to be able to persuade resource holders to provide the support they need (Aldrich and Martinez, 2001; Choi and Shepherd, 2005; Rutherford and Buller, 2007). For example, entrepreneurs need to be able to motivate employees to work hard, attract customers to buy their own services or products, and persuade financiers to provide loans (Tocher et al., 2012). Thus, it is not just the entrepreneur’s social network that is important, but the ability of entrepreneurs to use and manage the network is also important for ventures to acquire resources (Batjargal, 2006; Jack et al., 2008). The entrepreneur’s political skill can be conceived as an important resource for its key role in convincing other individuals or organizations to provide valuable and necessary resources for ventures. For example, Ahearn et al. (2004), Breland et al. (2007), and Semadar et al. (2006) have found that individuals with higher political skills are better able to extract resources from social networks than those with lower ones. Batjargal’s (Barney, 1991) research results show that entrepreneurs with higher network capabilities can get their new ventures better recognized by the public. Fang et al. (2015) case study found that entrepreneurs with higher political skills can better build their own social networks, make better use of network relationships to obtain resources, and improve new venture performance. Barney (1991) proposes that rare, irreplaceable and heterogeneous resources and abilities can bring sustainable competitive advantage. This includes various tangible and intangible assets, such as organizational practices and processes, knowledge and information, management capabilities and company culture (Barney, 1991; Barney et al., 2001). RBV has emphasized the importance of the skills of top managers (Castanias and Helfat, 1991; Maritan, 2001). If entrepreneurs who own high political skills can be viewed as a specific, rare and valuable resource, we expect that politically skilled entrepreneurs will bring better performance for their new ventures than politically unskilled entrepreneurs. Further, we define an entrepreneur as a new ventures’ founder and an actual operator and controller. Entrepreneurs also substantially take on the role of CEO; in fact, there is significant empirical support for CEO effect on firm performance. For example, some studies have found that CEO personality differences can lead to significant differences in company performance. Quigley and Hambrick (2014) found that the CEO effect on company performance(ROS) had increased from 8.6 percent (1950–1969) to 20.3 percent (1970–1989) to 26.4 percent (1990–2009). More recently, Tocher et al. (2012) have found that political skills have a significant and positive influence on new venture performance (Tocher et al., 2012). Existing research finds that political skills primarily affect non-financial performance (Tocher et al., 2012). However, it remains unclear whether political skills also affect financial performance. Because there are many indicators for measuring company performance (Stam et al., 2014), different measurement indicators may bring different results. Therefore, we need to further study the impact of political skills on new venture financial performance. As we all know, in transition economy and social environments, there exist resource-flow barriers due to weak and inefficient institutions. Entrepreneurial resources are often constrained and have low liquidity, and entrepreneurs’ ability to obtain resources from external environments becomes an important source of competitive advantage. Most researchers accept that entrepreneur political skill is an important competence contributing to the acquisition of the necessary resources to enhance new venture performance in a weak institution context. This argument may have both theoretical and practical legitimacy.

Overall, based on the logic of Fang et al. (2015) and Tocher et al. (2012), we believe that the political skills of entrepreneurs will help entrepreneurs to establish good relationships with resource owners and promote mutually beneficial resource exchanges. Thus, politically skilled entrepreneurs will establish and develop better social networks, which are richer in resources, and then use these networks to achieve a better performance. Drawing on the above arguments, we propose that:

New venture performance is a critical condition for the sustainability of entrepreneurship. This does not only mean that entrepreneurs and their newly founded ventures would survive over time, but it also means that the entrepreneurial efforts could be constantly committed into their business. Our Perspective paper argues that, through active efforts in exercising political skills to be effective, new venture performance could be achieved on and on, by continuously expanding (i.e., the size) and broadening (i.e., the diversity) social networks with resource embeddedness. This paper also implies that merely having political skills may not be fully effective, unless such skills really function on the development of social networks. Therefore, we further incorporated psychological capital into the traditional research framework and proposed that psychological capital may affect the functionality of the entrepreneur’s political skills, social networks, and new venture performance.

On the other hand, this study also has important theoretical and practical implications for social entrepreneurship and social innovation. Unlike the benefits exchange in the business context, in the context of social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs are more likely to obtain resources through charitable donations or volunteer services from others. For resource providers who have not received the corresponding benefits, whether they are willing to help social ventures depends on whether they accept the social goals of social ventures, or whether they have sufficient confidence in the success of social entrepreneurship. Therefore, in the context of social entrepreneurship, the psychological capital of entrepreneurs may play a more important role in helping social ventures obtain resources. This is due to the fact that the psychological capital of entrepreneurs may not only affect the functionality of their political skills but also the psychological and emotional states of resource providers or members of social networks, which will in turn affect the resource acquisition of social ventures. In today’s world, there are more and more social problems, such as unemployment, poverty, environmental pollution, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, and aging of the population etc. These social problems have threatened sustainable development and cannot be solved by relying only on traditional government and market mechanisms. Thus, continuous social innovation is required. Like social entrepreneurship, the success of social innovation also requires reaching broad social consensus and building public confidence. Therefore, the psychological capital of social innovators is also very important, because their positive psychological states may positively affect the emotions of various social groups and win their support and help.

Limited by research resources and time, this paper only provides a conceptual framework and a series of theoretical propositions, and these theoretical assumptions have not been empirically tested. Future research may empirically examine the proposed and related hypotheses with multiple and combined methodologies. For example, to examine the conceptual framework in this article, studies need to adopt both multivariate statistics, social network analysis, and financial modeling methods. A high demand of the data collection and testing skills is obvious. In addition, because the research concept of this study involves multiple levels of individuals, teams or groups and organizations, in future empirical research, it may be necessary to further select a suitable cross-level theoretical foundation and build a suitable theoretical model. In data analysis, cross-level modeling and data analysis methods may be required, such as HLM, Mplus, etc.

In this paper, we mainly discuss the impact of entrepreneurs’ own psychological capital on the functionality of political skills, as other people’s psychological capital may have different effects on the functionality of entrepreneurial political skill. Future research can further analyze the impact of psychological capital of internal colleagues and external social network members on the functionality of entrepreneurial political skill.

Further, social entrepreneurship generally has a higher risk of failure. When social entrepreneurs encounter entrepreneurial failures, it is vital for them to be able to recover from the spiritual shock they experience. They need to be encouraged and comforted, and the cause of failure needs to be clearly analyzed. Therefore, future research can explore and develop some new research frameworks. For example, we can study the relationships between psychological capital, resilience capacity, resource portfolio, and learning from failure. Some interesting questions include whether and how the psychological capital of emotional network members affects the entrepreneur’s resilience capacity. Are there significant differences in the impact of psychological capital of different social network members on entrepreneurs’ resilience capacity? How does the entrepreneur’s resilience capacity affect their resource portfolio and learning from failure, etc.?