Suchergebnisse

Entrepreneurs' decision-making process is one of the main research topics in entrepreneurship studies. This research aims to conceptualize the antecedents of new venture creation decision in Iranian high tech industries. The research utilizes an innovative non-teleological approach in order to take into account the specific regional context of Iran. Most research into entrepreneurial decision making utilizes teleological approaches; however, these models could not adequately explain the phenomena within the Iranian context. This qualitative study utilized event- based interviews with 20 nascent entrepreneurs. Results from coding, categorizing and validating the research findings, revealed 3 main categories as antecedents of new venture creation decision. Accordingly, concepts of entrepreneurial meta-cognition; primary actions and receiving feedback; and positive attitude toward change, constitute the main antecedents of new venture creation decision in this context. The findings also reveal the non-teleological nature of entrepreneurial decision-making, and adoption of some effectuation logics in the studied decision-making process.

PurposeThis study furthers the body of knowledge on entrepreneurial decision-making, entrepreneurial marketing and female entrepreneurs by exploring practical implications of heuristics and biases in female entrepreneurs' marketing decisions. Heuristics and biases influence many entrepreneurial decisions. Moreover, some of the most important entrepreneurial decisions are marketing-related. Given that the entrepreneurial marketing behavior emanates from entrepreneurial thinking and decision-making, one may conclude that female entrepreneurs' marketing decisions are susceptible to heuristics and biases. This paper aims to explore the outcomes of heuristics and biases in entrepreneurial marketing decisions.Design/methodology/approachData were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with 19 Iranian female biotech entrepreneurs and analyzed by thematic analysis.FindingsThe findings indicate that introducing pioneering products to the market, overestimating product's market appeal, unprepared entry, underestimating the competition, overcoming entry impediments, entry postponement, growth, success in incremental innovation and failure in radical innovation are the main outcomes of the identified heuristics and biases in the female entrepreneurs' marketing decisions.Practical implicationsThis paper has some precious practical implications for marketers as well as female entrepreneurs running small businesses. Generally speaking, reducing the negative impacts of the identified heuristics and biases of this study while enhancing their positive effects will increase the chances of female entrepreneurs to compete and succeed in tumultuous markets. Furthermore, our most important managerial implication is regarding overconfidence, which was very common in the female entrepreneurs' marketing decisions by having various positive and negative outcomes. Thus, female entrepreneurs should be careful of this fateful bias in their decisions by knowing the most common signs of overconfidence.Originality/valueThis paper is unique because of not only identifying the main heuristics and biases but also their major outcomes in entrepreneurs' major marketing decisions. Moreover, this paper is a pioneer in exploring heuristics and biases in female entrepreneurs' decisions.

Entrepreneurs make important decisions regarding different aspects of their enterprises. Given the bulk of uncertainty, complexity as well as the rapid rate of change in their business environment, entrepreneurs' decisions, including their marketing decisions, are prone to decision-making biases. Previous research has mainly focused on the negative outcomes of decision-making biases for entrepreneurs. We argue that sometimes entrepreneurial decision-making biases could have positive outcomes, too. Ignoring these positive outcomes has led to a serious research gap in the field of entrepreneurship. Thus, in this paper, we attempted to explore positive outcomes of decision-making biases in entrepreneurs' marketing decisions with a generic qualitative methodology. We gathered data by conducting semi-structured interviews with nascent Iranian entrepreneurs active in nanotechnology and biotechnology. The collected data were analyzed by thematic analysis. Our results indicate that survival in the market, overcoming the competition, propensity for innovation and growth are the main positive outcomes of entrepreneurial decision-making biases in entrepreneurial marketing. We recommend that future studies consider exploring other possible positive outcomes of decision-making biases in various entrepreneurs' decisions.