Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Entrepreneurship scholars explore “how opportunities to bring into existence ‘future’ goods and services are discovered, created, and exploited, by whom, and with what consequences” (Venkataraman. Adv Entrep Emergc Growth 3(1):119–138, 1997: 120). Specifically, over that last two decades, scholars have conducted various studies with the aim to better understand the components, antecedents, and outcomes of an entrepreneurial mindset; these studies have explored how characteristics of individuals, teams, organizations, and environments facilitate or obstruct entrepreneurial thinking and action. This book culminates the results of our research on this topic.

This chapter discusses the role of prior knowledge in entrepreneurial cognition. We assume that heterogeneity in individuals’ knowledge provides an answer to one of the most important questions in entrepreneurship research: Why do some individuals recognize new business opportunities while others do not? More specifically, we ask: How do different types of knowledge trigger the recognition of different types (e.g., commercial, sustainable, health-related, international) of opportunities? How do different sources of knowledge (internal and external to the entrepreneur) influence opportunity recognition? Having identified important types and sources of knowledge, how do cognitive processes, in particular structural alignment, in conjunction with prior knowledge impact opportunity identification? In this chapter, we address the above questions drawing on extant research from both cognitive science and entrepreneurship.

In this chapter we highlight how motivation is an important driver of entrepreneurs’ identification and subsequent exploitation of opportunities. While we acknowledge the motivational role of financial rewards for entrepreneurship and explore how financial rewards interact with prior knowledge, we note that many entrepreneurs are driven by non-financial motivation. What types of motivation other than financial can motivate (or demotivate) entrepreneurial action? What types of motivation trigger the exploitation of opportunities targeted toward sustaining nature or the communal environment and developing society as a whole? And how does one’s psychological and physical health impact entrepreneurial motivation? What is the role of one’s personal values in driving such motivation? And finally, what triggers the motivation to persist with entrepreneurial action in the face of obstacles (as opposed to engaging in it in the first place)? In this chapter we address the above questions from multiple theoretical angles to gain a comprehensive understanding of what motivates entrepreneurs to discover, exploit, and persist with new opportunities of various types.

In this chapter we describe the important role of attention in the entrepreneurial process. Given that attention is a limited cognitive resource, allocation to those aspects of the environment that are related to new opportunities is central to entrepreneurial action. How can managers’ attention be guided in organizations to facilitate opportunity identification? How does the allocation of entrepreneurs’ attention impact opportunity evaluation? What drives managers’ attention to underperforming entrepreneurial projects? Finally, how does attention interfere with entrepreneurs’ metacognitive processes—processes which are known to be of central importance to develop entrepreneurial cognition? In this chapter, we try to answer these questions and illustrate how attentional processes guide entrepreneurial cognition.

In this chapter, we note that one important topic in psychology research is to understand how individuals develop their self-identity—that is, how do they answer the question “Who am I?” This research has shown that a meaningful self-identity is central to individuals’ psychological functioning and well-being. How can entrepreneurs develop such a meaningful identity that balances distinctiveness and belonging and therefore maximizes well-being? Further, how can entrepreneurs manage different micro-identities across different situations (e.g., entrepreneur and family member)? How can individuals use an entrepreneurial career to recover from traumatic events that disrupt their current work identities? And finally, in the specific case of family businesses where business-related and family-related identities highly overlap, how can entrepreneurs cope with identity conflict? In this chapter, we tackle the above questions drawing on optimal distinctiveness theory and other theoretical streams from the identity literature.

In this chapter, we point out that entrepreneurship has often been depicted as an “emotional rollercoaster” with multiple, and sometimes extreme, ups and downs, and psychologists have long established that these emotional experiences impact individuals’ cognitions. How do emotions, both positive and negative, impact entrepreneurs’ opportunity recognition? How do emotions, displayed by supervisors, impact employees’ entrepreneurial motivation? Further, given that the failure of entrepreneurial projects is known to often cause substantial negative emotions, how do these emotions impact team members’ learning and organizational commitment? And how do these effects depend on the organizational environment and individual coping behaviors and self-compassion? In this chapter, we explore the above questions to shed more light on the role of emotions for entrepreneurial cognition.

This chapter concludes the book by discussing implications for scholars and practitioners. We suggest a number of directions for future research that hopefully inspire future scholarship on individuals’ and managers’ abilities to identify and successfully act upon the opportunities provided by the dynamic, hypercompetitive, and uncertain business environments of today.