The Role of Cognition and Information Access in the Recognition of Innovative Opportunities

Abstract

This research examines nascent entrepreneurs’ perceptions about the innovativeness of the opportunities they have recognized. Results from a survey of 324 nascent entrepreneurs in Taiwan indicate that one's level of prior industry experience, orientation toward risk, and access to information in the environment are each associated with perceived innovativeness of the opportunity. An examination of interaction effects shows that when prior industry experience is low, risk taking propensity boosts the level of perceived innovativeness, but does not have an effect in the case of high industry experience. The findings suggest that cognitive elements and information access can play a role in the identification and pursuit of innovative opportunities.

Exploring Innovation Adoption Behavior for Sustainable Development: The Case of Hungarian Food Sector

“…Among the existing studies on the innovative behavior of entrepreneurs, the degree of innovation was positively related to entrepreneur training [38], previous experience in the sector [39,40], the degree of risk that the entrepreneur can manage [41], personality traits [42] and self-esteem [43].…”

Why are some graduate entrepreneurs more innovative than others? The effect of human capital, psychological factor and entrepreneurial rewards on entrepreneurial innovativeness

“…Among the small number of research on innovation behavior of start-ups at the individual level, the extent of innovation is found to be positively related to the entrepreneur's education level (Koellinger, 2008;Robson et al, 2009), prior entrepreneurship experiences (Cliff et al, 2006;Ucbasaran et al, 2008;Robson et al 2012;Gruber et al, 2013;Simmons et al, 2014), orientation toward risk (Hsieh and Kelley, 2016), personality traits (Marcati et al, 2008), and a high degree of self-confidence (Koellinger, 2008;Bayon et al, 2016). None of these studies used student entrepreneur samples except Ucbasaran et al (2008).…”

Differences in ICT use by entrepreneurial micro-firms: evidence from Zambia

“…Risk-taking firms tend to be more alert and ready to anticipate, assess, and counter risks associated with acquiring and accessing business information and contacts through external sources (Perren, 1999). This explains why more riskoriented firms are often more at ease and willing to increase ICT use to exploit external, impersonal sources of information and new business contacts, compared to risk-averse firms (Hsieh & Kelly, 2016). Regarding the control variables, the significant negative association between 'age of the owner-manager' and all three ICT use categories suggests that younger owner-managers tend to deploy ICT more broadly and intensively in their businesses than older ownermanagers.…”