Dissertation
Staying Alert and Being Imaginative: Exploring Entrepreneurial Cognition in Depth
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
2020
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005528
Abstract
Entrepreneurial cognition is an important stream of research in the field of entrepreneurship. In my dissertation I use three essays to advance theoretical development and empirical research to understand how entrepreneurial cognition influence innovation. My first essay examines how entrepreneurial alertness and attention independently and jointly impact new product introductions. Using a sample of CEOs from 271 US-based small and medium size enterprises during 2004-2015, and by adopting a psycholinguistic approach, I show that although alertness has positive impact on the rate of new product introductions, but hyper-alertness hurts the rate of new product introductions. The results also indicate that the hurtful effect of alertness is mitigated by attention to research and development, customer demands and competitor strategies. My second essay investigates how entrepreneurial alertness enables entrepreneurs navigate through uncertain environmental conditions. Based on a longitudinal analysis of 251 entrepreneurial firms, I show that, alert CEOs are able to achieve higher rate of new product introductions in stable environment conditions than in a dynamic environment. As entrepreneurs often deal with complex and uncertain environmental conditions, this study helps us understand that entrepreneurs will need multiple cognitive abilities in order to achieve higher innovation outcomes in an uncertain environment. Finally, in my third essay, I examine how entrepreneurial imagination, the ability to form images and ideas in mind, and their knowledge depth and breadth influence the innovativeness of the ventures. Despite the importance of imagination in entrepreneurial outcomes, much less attention has been paid to explore the finer nuances of how it shapes venture innovativeness. Using survey data from a group of 32 entrepreneurs in United States, I show that creative, social and practical imaginativeness positively influence venture innovativeness. Further, the results indicate that, while entrepreneurs with creative and social imaginativeness are likely to achieve higher innovativeness when combined with their broad knowledge, entrepreneurs with practical imaginativeness are capable of achieving high venture innovativeness when they have gained deep knowledge base. Overall, my dissertation makes a diligent effort to explore entrepreneurial cognition in depth and examine its impact on venture innovation.
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Details
- Title
- Staying Alert and Being Imaginative
- Creators
- Smita Srivastava
- Contributors
- Arvin Sahaym (Advisor)Amrita Lahiri (Committee Member)ALEXANDER S KIER (Committee Member)Thomas H Allison (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Carson College of Business
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 170
- Identifiers
- 99901051540401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation