Customer-integrated innovation management

Research on entrepreneurial learning often stresses the role of experience and previous knowledge. We aim to advance this perspective by pointing out the prerequisites and limitations of experience-based forms of learning and by adapting findings from educational psychology to the entrepreneurial context. Developing a model of self-regulated entrepreneurial learning (SREL) we pursue a more process oriented view of entrepreneurial learning in order to explain how learning unfolds in contexts of uncertainty and novelty when relevant experience and knowledge are scarce. The model comprises a planning, a performance and a review phase in order to support entrepreneurs in their learning process. It is suggested how SREL is related to self-efficacy, emotions and cognitive biases.

How entrepreneurs search for information influences entrepreneurial opportunity recognition processes like the amount of opportunities recognized by entrepreneurs. The odds of entrepreneurs to successfully recognize promising opportunities increases if we advance our understanding of entrepreneurial information search behavior. However, despite its imputed relevance, academic understanding remains limited particularly due to empirical issues. Existing scales attempting to measure such search behaviors lack sufficient distinguishability between the different types of information search behavior. Thus, it is almost impossible to assess what construct is actually being measured. This entails the need for a valid, reliable and applicable new measure. By building on opportunity discovery and information search theory, we develop and validate a scale of information search behavior. We found proof for three distinct types of information search behaviour, namely, passive, proactive and systematic search.