Financing Risk Formation Paths for Sustainable Development of Chinese Fishery Enterprises: A Configurational Analysis Based on Panel Data

Effectively preventing the financing risk of Chinese fishery enterprises is a common concern of the government and academia. Based on the "complex dynamic perspective", this study constructs a configuration analysis framework of influencing factors and explores the coupling matching relationship between the antecedent conditions in the temporal dimension. This study revealed that (1) in recent years, fishery enterprises have exhibited five distinct paths contributing to the formation of financing risk. The identified paths encompass considerations related to growth, profitability, expansion, loss, and decline. These formation paths can be categorized into three models based on risk preference. High-grade financing risks are caused by the combination of risk-seeking behavior and operational failure. (2) The China‒U.S. trade war and the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 prompted the dominant paths to integrate into one turning point path, which caused a significant turning point in the core conditions that originally occupied the dominant position. (3) Before 2020, the financing risks of fishery enterprises exhibited multiple condition configurations and were affected by multiple trajectory coupling effects, similar to a "loosely coupled" system. The research conclusions of this study can help to deepen the understanding of the nature and mechanism of financing risk for fishery enterprises and promote the transformation and upgrading of the marine economy.