Evolution and Mechanism Reconfiguration of Entrepreneurship in the WENZHOU Model in China's Private Economy: Evidence from the YUEQING Electrical Equipment Cluster

Grounded in a “market–government–society” triadic framework, this study distills the core components of the entrepreneurial spirit embedded in the WENZHOU Model (温州模式) across four stages—incubation, formation, transformation, and upgrading—and, using the YUEQING Electrical Equipment Industrial Cluster as a case, elucidates the mechanism pathway linking quality, standards, branding, and policy. Our findings indicate that, under the joint influence of market competition and social capital, Wenzhou's entrepreneurial spirit underwent a gradual reconfiguration from opportunity orientation and risk bearing to norm acceptance and long-termism; critical events—such as quality rectification and the “Quality-based City” policy —catalyzed an institutional shift in governance and a functional leap of industry associations, which, through standardization and branding, further embedded norms into firms’ internal order, thereby updating the development trajectory from extensive expansion to high-quality growth. On this basis, we argue that, conditional on the coordination of an “effective market and committed/proactive government”, association-based governance, differentiated taxation, and calibrated competition intensity can jointly foster innovation and sustainable upgrading in private manufacturing clusters.