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This article aims to clarify the mechanism by which heuristic-driven biases influence the entrepreneurial strategic decision-making in an emerging economy.

Entrepreneurs' heuristic-driven biases have been measured using a questionnaire, comprising numerous items, including indicators of entrepreneurial strategic decision-making. To examine the relationship between heuristic-driven biases and entrepreneurial strategic decision-making process, a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire has been used to collect data from the sample of 169 entrepreneurs who operate in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and Amos graphics software. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique.

The article provides empirical insights into the relationship between heuristic-driven biases and entrepreneurial strategic decision-making. The results suggest that heuristic-driven biases (anchoring and adjustment, representativeness, availability and overconfidence) have a markedly negative influence on the strategic decisions made by entrepreneurs in emerging markets. It means that heuristic-driven biases can impair the quality of the entrepreneurial strategic decision-making process.

The article encourages entrepreneurs to avoid relying on cognitive heuristics or their feelings when making strategic decisions. It provides awareness and understanding of heuristic-driven biases in entrepreneurial strategic decisions, which could be very useful for business actors such as entrepreneurs, managers and entire organizations. Understanding regarding the role of heuristic-driven biases in entrepreneurial strategic decisions may help entrepreneurs to improve the quality of their decision-making. They can improve the quality of their decision-making by recognizing their behavioral biases and errors of judgment, to which we are all prone, resulting in a more appropriate selection of entrepreneurial opportunities.

The current study is the first to focus on links between heuristic-driven bias and the entrepreneurial strategic decision-making in Pakistan—an emerging economy. This article enhanced the understanding of the role that heuristic-driven bias plays in the entrepreneurial strategic decisions and more importantly, it went some way toward enhancing understanding of behavioral aspects and their influence on entrepreneurial strategic decision-making in an emerging market. It also adds to the literature in the area of entrepreneurial management specifically the role of heuristics in entrepreneurial strategic decision-making; this field is in its initial stage, even in developed countries, while, in developing countries, little work has been done.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics and personal values of a successful entrepreneur in order to understand the quality of such characteristics. Thus, this paper aims to investigate how these characteristics and personal values impact strategic decision-making and outcomes driving the success and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The research question is answered through a single case study approach based on the case of the charismatic and flourishing entrepreneur and owner of Gemar Balloons, a balloon-manufacturing company established in the centre of Italy a century ago.

The paper shows how the success of SMEs in a dynamic environment is influenced by the central resource, “the entrepreneur”, whose entrepreneurial mindset, culture and leadership are essential and partially replicable. They allow strategic management to seek opportunities and develop innovation, achieving competitive advantages and creating wealth.

This paper contributes to an understanding of how values and specific personal characteristics establish an entrepreneurial mindset, culture and leadership, and whether and how these factors are exportable and repeatable. In this way, it allows a better understanding of how possible it is to establish an entrepreneurial mindset and culture by working on a younger generation's values and characteristics. Moreover, it explains why and how entrepreneurial SME leaders are best able to make decisions and manage resources strategically to create competitive advantages.

The paper is new because it shows the distinctive values and characteristics influencing the emerging strategic decision-making model and corporate outcomes.

Adopting a dual processing cognitive perspective, this study explores the decision-making processes past the start-up stage that small entrepreneurial businesses employ to grow. The author examines how entrepreneurs evaluate and make decisions on growth opportunities in their business environment. The author uses cognitive style as a theoretical lens to capture differences in information processing, combining interviews and psychometric questionnaires to analyse cognitive styles. The longitudinal mixed methods approach illustrates the richness of the entrepreneur’s decision-making process, which the author tracks over a two-year period. The author determines how intuitive and analytical cognitive styles are used by entrepreneurs and the contribution these styles make to decision-making. The findings show that the two cognitive styles are versatile as entrepreneurs adjust and adapt their cognitive style over time, in keeping with the situational factors of their business environment. The author also finds marked differences between novice and mature entrepreneurs and that experienced entrepreneurs exhibited greater levels of cognitive versatility, which was directly linked to their prior experience. The study has significant implications for future research, which should consider the question how an entrepreneur’s cognitive style is dependent on the business context and their prior experience.

This study explores entrepreneurial decision-making in the equity crowdfunding (ECF) context, and it aims to shed some light on the relationship among three aspects: entrepreneurial characteristics (i.e. entrepreneurial alertness and entrepreneurial self-efficacy), entrepreneurial motivations (i.e. promotion, improvement of networking and acquisition of product and market knowledge) and entrepreneurial behaviours (i.e. campaign characteristics in terms of communication and offerings).

The hypotheses testing and analysis were conducted using the partial least squares approach to structural equation modelling, and data were collected from the overall population of Italian ECF platforms.

Our results highlight that entrepreneurial characteristics may be central in ECF because of their significant impact on some motivation entrepreneurs have to adopt ECF, which in turn have an impact on meaningful campaign characteristics that can influence ECF performance.

The current literature is mainly focused on investors' decisions, while a neglected perspective until now has been that of entrepreneurs. This study is among the first to focus on entrepreneurs in the ECF context, and, to the best of our knowledge, it is the first study to investigate the entrepreneurial decision-making process. The added value of this research lies in the analysis of the entrepreneurial aspects underlying entrepreneurial decisions to use ECF.

The paper aims to empirically examine the questions of how top management team (TMT) characteristics, including TMT heterogeneity and vertical dyads differences between TMT and Board Director, influence entrepreneurial strategic orientation, as well as how industry environment and corporate ownership moderate those relationships.

The paper designs the panel data on the listed companies of China's Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Board for the period 2006-2010, and uses hierarchical regression analysis and grouping regression analysis when examining the relationships among variables involved.

The paper provides empirical insights about how top management team (TMT) characteristics, including TMT heterogeneity and vertical dyads differences between TMT and Board Director, influence entrepreneurial strategic orientation, as well as how industry environment and corporate ownership moderate those relationships. It suggests that, except for TMT educational background, the heterogeneity of TMT age, gender, functional experience, and the vertical dyad differences between TMT and board chairperson significantly and positively impact ESO. Furthermore, industry environment and corporate ownership will moderate the relationship between TMT characteristics and ESO.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how top management team characteristics influence entrepreneurial strategic orientation, as well as how industry environment and corporate ownership moderate those relationships.

This 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.

Data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with 19 Iranian female biotech entrepreneurs and analyzed by thematic analysis.

The 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.

This 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.

This 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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating effect of internal entrepreneurial environment (IEE) between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and organizational performance.

The research is conducted using an original data set of 185 in China. The mediator measurement steps recommended by Baron and Kenny to test the mediating effects are applied.

The proposition that EO can lead to the improvement of organizational performance is only partially confirmed in this paper; IEE is the mediating variable between innovation‐proactive and organizational performance, but the dimension of risk‐taking is not verified.

As far as the IEE measurement scale is concerned, its simplicity is achieved at the cost of accuracy. Future research may adopt more complex scale design to further verify the relationship among the different sub‐dimensions of IEE, as well as the correlation and causality between those dimensions and organizational performance.

The complex relationship between EO and organizational performance requires further study of the contingency and construction of third‐party variables. This research confirms that building IEE is an important path for transforming EO into organizational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to analyse what personality traits impact entrepreneurial cognitive and social strategic decision-making skills, originating from the effectuation framework.

A total of 128 participants from an entrepreneurial pre-launch programme were assessed by experienced incubator and business coaches. Personality was measured by a Big Five test. Based on a confirmatory factor analysis, the relationships were analysed between personality and three core dimensions of the effectuation framework: the bird-in-hand principle, the crazy quilt principle and the pilot in the plane principle.

Specific patterns (moderation effects) as opposed to levels of personality traits proved to be relevant. The bird-in-hand and the crazy quilt principles are related to the moderating effect between sensitivity to feedback, sociability and ambition. The pilot in the plane principle was related to the whole pattern of entrepreneurial key qualities embedded in the extraversion domain. Furthermore, relationships of personality with key issues in the effectuation framework were found, examples being reflecting on a high diversity of means or on own talents, conducting a thorough risk analysis and engaging in inspirational networking. The final model revealed a direct positive influence of the capacity to conduct a thorough risk analysis on the overall capacity to apply the effectuation principles.

A limitation of this study is the exclusion of the lemonade principle from the final model. This being based on unsatisfying model fit indices. Another limitation is the cross-sectional design, as well as the chosen research context: the pre-launch entrepreneurial programme.

The research results shed a light on the impact that personality plays in adoption of effectual decision making.

The effectuation framework is widely used by individual entrepreneurs, SMEs and start-ups, to design innovative business models or implement an up-scaling strategy.

Little is known about the underlying mechanisms of the effectuation framework. Moreover, evidence-based insights are offered to entrepreneurs that intent to mobilise effectual behaviours.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of affective appraisal dimensions on the use of two ecologically rational, social heuristics: imitate the majority (IMH) and imitate the best (IBH) during an entrepreneurial strategic decision-making process (ESDM).

The authors test the hypotheses in a controlled field experiment, on a final sample of 98 entrepreneurs.

The study shows that entrepreneurs experiencing affect described by certainty appraisal display a preference for relying on IMH, but not on IBH. Moreover, entrepreneurs who experience unpleasant affect tend to rely more on IMH, rather than IBH. The reverse is true for the entrepreneurs who experience positive affect. Finally, the use of IMH is most likely under unpleasant and certain affect, while the use of IBH is most likely under pleasant and certain affect.

The main contribution of this study is that it provides initial support for the impact of affective appraisal dimensions on the use of ecologically rational heuristics (i.e. heuristics that save important resources, but bring beneficial results) during an ESDM process.