An Investigation of the Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Experience and Entrepreneurial Outcome

Entrepreneurs and investors alike rely on prior entrepreneurial experience and talent as vital clues for anticipating entrepreneurial performance. However, the extent to which entrepreneurial expertise accumulates and the extent to which entrepreneurial talent can be defined and measured remain open for debate. Therefore, the studies of this dissertation have been conducted with the aim of advancing our understanding of how entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial talent relate to entrepreneurial performance and behavior. Each study offers insights into how entrepreneurial expertise accumulates and is therefore of relevance to multiple stakeholder

Evolution of Entrepreneurial Judgment with Venture-Specific Experience

This study advances research on entrepreneurial cognition by investigating how entrepreneurial judgment evolves during new venture creation. We conceptualize entrepreneurial judgment as a cognitive process in the minds of entrepreneurs that operates on the causal map – i.e., a knowledge structure concerning what factors they believe will help the chances of profitability under uncertainty. At the time of initial epiphany, entrepreneurs construct a cognitive causal map which guides resource allocation decisions. Over time, venture-specific experience accumulates and entrepreneurial judgment evolves in response to their observations. Using a dataset of 524 nascent entrepreneurs, we find that entrepreneurs with more venturespecific experiences have more selective judgments, and have stronger conviction in those judgments. We also find that perceived uncertainty and cognitive dispositions of the individuals affect entrepreneurial judgment

Inspired or foolhardy: sensemaking, confidence and entrepreneurs' decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of confidence in how both new and experienced entrepreneurs interpret and make sense of their business environment to inform decision-making. We illustrate our conceptual arguments with descriptive results from a large-scale (n = 6289) survey on entrepreneurs' perception of business performance and their decisions taken at a time of uncertainty in an economic downturn. Quantitative findings are stratified along experiential lines to explore heterogeneity in entrepreneurial decision-making and directly inform our conceptual arguments, while qualitative data from open questions are used to explain the role of confidence. Newer entrepreneurs are found to be more optimistic in the face of environmental risk, which impacts on their decision-making and innovative capabilities. However, the more experienced entrepreneurs warily maintain margin and restructure to adapt to environmental changes. Instead of looking directly at the confidence of individuals, we show how confidence impacts sensemaking, and ultimately, decision-making. These insights inform research on the behaviour of novice and experienced entrepreneurs in relation to innovative business activities. Specifically, blanket assumptions on the role of confidence may be misplaced as its impact changes with experience to alter how entrepreneurs make sense of their environment