Revitalizing the ‘International’ in International Entrepreneurship: The Promise of Culture and Cognition

Entrepreneurial sensing capabilities: the stimulating role of cross-cultural experience

“…This ease of air travel in particular has not only led to a rise in business travel and traditional forms of expatriation assignments, but also radically increased personal travel -55% of travelers crossing borders in 2019 were tourists (Economist, 2021). There is a tendency in our field to equate international experience with international business (Coviello, 2015;Pidduck et al, 2022), but the findings of this research provide practical insights into how the intercultural experience underpinning overseas travel provide a potent source of entrepreneurial insight that can Cross-cultural experience and entrepreneurs manifest anywhere. As most global travel is not immigration (Economist, 2021), the entrepreneurial benefits from cross-cultural experiences we draw attention to in this study are thus likely to manifest domestically, when travellers return home.…”

“…Third, we address ongoing calls in the entrepreneurship literature for more research on the role of individual-level capabilities and cognition in the venture development process (e.g. Clark et al, 2018;Pidduck et al, 2022). While entrepreneurial capabilities can be broad in their scope (Busenitz and Arthurs, 2007), context specificity is key for advancing both theoretical and practical understanding on the experiences and cognitive processes that stimulate their development (De Massis et al, 2018).…”

“…What we are yet to know, however, is what these potentially common mechanisms are. This knowledge gap is unfortunate as theoretical understanding on how intercultural exposures cultivate entrepreneurial capabilities could enable an increasingly accessible experience among entrepreneurs to be leveraged as a valuable resource for new venture ideation and development (Pidduck et al, 2022).…”

“…entrepreneurial environment is infused with multicultural dynamics (Cruz et al, 2018). Indeed, while the generally positive links between global mobility and entrepreneurial activity in the aggregate are well established (Fairlie and Lofstrom, 2015), research on individual-level mechanisms that unpack and explain what this vigour of the mind manifests as and why it seems to be conducive to entrepreneurship remains scant (Pidduck et al, 2022). Drawing on image theory and integrating insights on the personal effects of cross-cultural experience in adjacent fields (e.g.…”

“…As such, focusing on the sensing subset helps to also extent ongoing conversations regarding the need for more contextual and domain specificity in entrepreneurial capabilities studies for them to yield practical benefits (De Massis et al, 2018;Kimmitt and Dimov, 2020). The focus on cross-cultural experience as antecedents led us to also integrate findings from adjacent fields such as cross-cultural psychologystill largely disconnected from entrepreneurship research (Pidduck et al, 2022) which provided strong rationale for focusing on opportunity recognition and creative behaviour. However, growing research on similar initiating endeavour variables such as entrepreneurial imaginativeness, serendipity mindsets, paradox mindsets, or new venture ideation would also be viable candidates for exploring in future research as they too thrive on the juxtapositions and experimentation that intercultural exposures provide (e.g.…”