David W. Williams

The Impact of Role Identities on Entrepreneurs’ Evaluation and Selection of Opportunities

Extant research suggests that entrepreneurs’ identities influence the venture creation process. However, we know little about how the “hats” that entrepreneurs wear (i.e., their different role identities) influence how entrepreneurs think about—and select—opportunities. Employing verbal protocol and content analysis techniques, we show that, depending on the role identity assumed, entrepreneurs attend to different opportunity features and make different decisions with regard to opportunity consideration and selection. As a result, role identity has an important situated influence on entrepreneurs’ cognition, which may significantly affect the pattern of growth and pursuit of their new ventures.

The Road to Riches? A Model of the Cognitive Processes and Inflection Points Underpinning Entrepreneurial Action

Studies of entrepreneurial action often distinguish between different phases such as opportunity identification, evaluation, and exploitation. Yet, the richness of past contributions masks the absence of an integral framework to organize, in a theoretically consistent ensemble, the different kinds of cognitive processes that underpin entrepreneurial action. In this chapter, we draw from research on human action and cognition to offer an integrative model of the cognitive processes that foster entrepreneurial action. By presenting a more specific articulation of when, how, and why different cognitive processes operate, we provide theorists and empiricists with a more complete picture of how entrepreneurs’ thinking evolves from the emergence of an opportunity idea to the initiation of concrete entrepreneurial acts. In addition, our framework draws attention to cognitive inflection points that entrepreneurs must navigate in their journey toward entrepreneurship. By explicitly locating these inflection points and specifying the changes in mental processing that occurs at each point, we highlight that for entrepreneurial action to ensue, entrepreneurs must shift from one type of cognitive processing to another. Along this line, our model draws attention to the entire set of cognitive “skills” entrepreneurs must master for successful completion of each phase and successful transitions between phases.

Venture creation persistence: overcoming stage-gate issues

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into how nascent entrepreneurs persist despite outward appearances of little progress by using participant observations, and autobiographical and interview data. Design/methodology/approach Utilizing a multi-year case study, the authors use participant observation, autobiographical, and interview data to build the arguments. Findings The authors demonstrate that persistence involves overcoming stage-gate issues, and overcoming stage gates requires a flurry of activity and opportunity variation. Once stage gates are overcome, entrepreneurs experience an emergence-like event with a new flurry of activity that propels them toward the next stage gate. Doing so, the authors extend theories of entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial action by suggesting that nascent entrepreneurs who are slowly making progress toward start-up may be persisting by taking small but important steps toward start-up. Originality/value This study offers detailed observations and analysis about the behaviors and activities that a nascent entrepreneur undertook during an extremely long gestation/persistence period, which ultimately ended with the successful completion of the goal.