The impact of entrepreneurial cognition on the founding and survival of new small businesses

This paper reports on an investigation into nascent entrepreneurship. Developing and sustaining a new business is a complex and uncertain process, and different types of individuals react to this uncertainty in different ways. It is argued that cognitive factors play a crucial role. Validated and reliable psychometric instruments were administered to 119 nascent entrepreneurs in the UK The respondents were tracked through the nascent phase, business launch and to six months after launch. The findings indicate that cognitive style is not a predictor of nascent entrepreneurship but that it is highly influential in the process of founding a business. Both intuitive and analytic nascent entrepreneurs started businesses and cognitive style did not affect survival rates, but the process of business formation and survival developed in different ways. Most research to date has argued that an intuitive cognitive style is associated with the necessary characteristics for launching an entrepreneurial venture. It is possible that this conclusion has been drawn because most studies have been conducted among existing entrepreneurs. The findings of the present study indicate that, at the nascent stage of entrepreneurship, and particularly among inexperienced nascent entrepreneurs, this assertion is open to challenge. An awareness of an entrepreneur's cognitive style may assist those who seek to support and advise the nascent entrepreneur, but may also help individual entrepreneurs to recognize their strengths and weaknesses and, so, to develop appropriate strategies for business launch and survival.