Abstract: As “the entrepreneurs in the field”, new farmers have been playing an important role in promoting rural business innovation and industrial integration, in promoting agricultural and rural development, and so on. Based on the panel data of China Family Panel Studies for 2014, 2016 and 2018, this study examines the effects and mechanisms of relationship networks on the entrepreneurial performance of new farmers. The results show that the relationship networks have significantly improved the entrepreneurial performance of new farmers. The mechanism analysis reveals that as a resource carrier, new farmers can obtain key resources such as funds and information through the relationship networks to improve entrepreneurial performance, while as a kind of governance mechanism, trust and norms in relational networks can enhance the altruism of new farmers to improve entrepreneurial performance. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the promotion effects of the relationship networks on the entrepreneurial performance of new farmers are more significant in the southern unified villages and the central dispersed villages. Compared with survival entrepreneurs, opportunistic entrepreneurs are more likely to improve their entrepreneurial performance through relationship networks. Compared with the entrepreneurial new farmers of college students and migrant workers returning home who have a“bilateral”network disconnection, the cross-border entrepreneurial new farmers and the local capable entrepreneurial new farmers are more likely to improve their entrepreneurial performance through relationship networks. Therefore, the government should take measures to better promote high-quality entrepreneurship and rural talent revitalization in rural areas, such as optimizing the training curriculum system for new farmers’ entrepreneurship, building an information exchange platform, and lowering the threshold for new farmers’ resource access.

Key words: relational network, new farmers, entrepreneurial performance, resource carrier, governance mechanism