Norris F. Krueger

Entrepreneurial Potential and Potential Entrepreneurs

Before there can be entrepreneurship there must be the potential for entrepreneurship, whether in a community seeking to develop or in a large organization seeking to innovate. Entrepreneurial potential, however, requires potential entrepreneurs. This paper discusses antecedents of such potential and proposes a model based on Shaperos (1982) model of the entrepreneurial event. We then discuss this model in light of supporting evidence from two different perspectives, corporate venturing and enterprise development.

The impact of prior entrepreneurial exposure on perceptions of new venture feasibility and desirability

Shapero (1975, 1982) proposed an Intentionality-based process model of the entrepreneurial event. Entrepreneurial intentions should derive from feasibility and desirability perceptions plus a propensity to act on opportunities. Prior entrepreneurship-related experiences should influence entrepreneurial intentions indirectly through these perceptions. Path analyses found that feasibility and desirability perceptions and propensity to act each proved significant antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions. Perceived feasibility was significantly associated with the breadth of prior exposure. Perceived desirability was significantly associated with the positiveness of that prior exposure. Strong support was found for Shaperos model, arguing for further application of intentions-based process models of entrepreneurial activity.

The Cognitive Infrastructure of Opportunity Emergence

Before we can act on opportunities we must first identify those opportunities. Understanding what promotes or inhibits entrepreneurial activity thus requires understanding how we construct perceived opportunities. Seeing a prospective course of action as a credible opportunity reflects an intentions–driven process driven by known critical antecedents. Based on well–developed theory and robust empirical evidence, we propose an intentions-based model of the cognitive infrastructure that supports or inhibits how we perceive opportunities. We discuss how this model both integrates past findings and guides future research. We also show the practical diagnostic power this model offers to managers.

What Lies Beneath? The Experiential Essence of Entrepreneurial Thinking

Cognitive developmental psychology and constructivism offer possibilities for the future of entrepreneurial cognition research to explore: (1) deeply seated beliefs and belief structures that ultimately anchor entrepreneurial thinking and (2) how they change as entrepreneurs move toward a more professional, expert mind–set. Such insights aid the field in identifying those developmental experiences that are the sources of those critical deep beliefs intrinsic to our mental models regarding entrepreneurship. As a field, entrepreneurship is lauded for the effectiveness of its teaching, and this essay offers strong theory to explain that our pedagogical best practices reflect important, well–known cognitive phenomena.

An Intentions‐Based Model of Entrepreneurial Teams’ Social Cognition*

Research has identified crucial antecedents of corporate entrepreneurship. Research has also identified crucial antecedents of entrepreneurial thinking. This article uses lessons from social cognition to explicitly link these two issues. We adapt an intentions–based model of how to promote entrepreneurial thinking from its original domain of individual entrepreneurship and translate that model to the domain of corporate entrepreneurship. From our intentions–based model of the social cognition of entrepreneurial teams, we emphasize the importance of perceptions of desirability and feasibility and that these perceptions are from the team as well as the individual perspective. This leads to three propositions about entrepreneurial teams and an outline of the opportunities for future research.

Entrepreneurial Intentions Are Dead: Long Live Entrepreneurial Intentions

Short of studying actual new venture launches, what could possibly be more potent than understanding the preconditions that enable entrepreneurial activity? Early research focused unsurprisingly on behavior (the “what?” and the “how?” even somewhat the “where?” and the “when?”) and since entrepreneurs were obviously special people, on the entrepreneurial person (the “who?”). Intentions are classically defined as the cognitive state temporally and causally prior to action (e.g., The intentional stance, Cambridge, 1989; Entrep Theory Pract 24:5–23, 2000). Here that translates to the working definition of the cognitive state temporally and causally prior to the decision to start a business. The field has adopted and adapted formal models of entrepreneurial intentions that are based on strong, widely accepted theory and whose results appear not only empirically robust but of great practical value. But do we have what we think we have? Or have we also opened the door to a much broader range of questions that will advance our theoretical understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs? We offer here a glimpse of the remarkably wide array of fascinating questions for entrepreneurship scholars.

Challenging the triple helix model of regional innovation systems: A venture-centric model

We offer a critical analysis of the triple helix model as a preferred basis for innovation systems. From a review of the research on innovation systems, it is argued that most models fail to include the entrepreneur and the innovator, as those models are macro-level concepts. It is suggested that this exclusion is a reason for low levels of entrepreneurial activity. We argue that the concepts of the entrepreneur and the innovator need to be treated as separate constructs. Structured interviews show that the key elements of the triple helix model such as governments, universities, and industries are not well integrated despite various efforts. The study shows that entrepreneurs and potential innovators (scientists and researchers) feel excluded or avoid involvement with government actors. The study questions the existing top-down triple helix model of innovation systems, as it discards the entrepreneurs. We offer a competing model based on reversed causation (a true bottom-up) double helix model.

New Horizons in Entrepreneurship: From Teacher-led to Student-centered Learning

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the complexity and heterogeneity of entrepreneurship education. In order to achieve this objective, this paper combines educational psychology with perspectives from entrepreneurship education research to make explicit educators tacit assumptions in order to understand how these assumptions guide teaching. Design/methodology/approach – Using ethnographic analysis, the paper reports data from the continuous development and implementation of a single course over a period of ten years bringing in the educator’s and the students perspectives on their achievements and course content. Findings – The authors find that it is sometimes advantageous to invoke and combine different learning theories and approaches in order to promote entrepreneurial awareness and mindset. It is also necessary to move away from entrepreneurship education as being teacher led to being more student-centred and focused on experiential and existential lifelong l...

'Trying' to be an Entrepreneur? A 'Goal-Specific' Challenge to the Intentions Model

If we are to understand how entrepreneurial intentions evolve, we must embrace theories reflecting the inherent dynamics of human decision making. While the dominant model of entrepreneurial intentions remains invaluable, capturing the dynamics is necessary to advance our understanding of how intent becomes action. To this end, we offer Bagozzis Theory of Trying (TT) as a theory-driven model that assumes a dynamic pathway to intent. Rather than focusing on intentions toward a static target behavior, TT focuses on intentions toward a dynamic goal. To support this perspective, we offer striking new evidence that the emergent intentions process is indeed dynamic.

Chiefdoms and Family Firm Regimes: Variations on the Same Anthropological Themes

Family owned and managed firms exhibit remarkable parallels to pre-industrial chiefdoms because the typical economic environment in which they exist limits them to a size and scale equivalent to that of a chiefdom. Using anthropological research this study inventories all known procedures of accommodating multiple heirs to the paramountcy of pre-industrial chiefdoms. It uses this exhaustive inventory to characterize the succession process in modern family owned and managed firms. The major theoretical concept adopted from anthropology is that of polity, defined as an autonomous system of institutional finance and organizational support (resource control and governance). Using terms such as polity helps us to recognize the universality of succession processes. Succession processes in family firms are less idiosyncratic than we once thought. Thus, we can fruitfully explore structural similarities between pre-industrial organizations and modern family firms using the considerable body of field research literature on chiefdoms (Goody, 1958; Barrett, 1965) which finds that every scheme to accommodate multiple successors falls into one of two categories: (a) personnel strategies and (b) asset strategies. A second critical concept is that while it is possible to inventory all possible outcomes (here, succession strategies) in any dynamic system, no single outcome can be accurately predicted in advance. The purpose of this paper is to provide an exhaustive inventory of possible outcomes of the succession process, rather than trying to predict the strategy chosen in a given case. The anthropological perspective provides a much-needed, empirically based, comprehensive model of succession processes in family firms and permits a more nomothetic approach to family firm research.