Opportunity Evaluation under Risky Conditions: The Cognitive Processes of Entrepreneurs
研究了企业家在风险条件下如何评估机会，发现控制幻觉和小数定律信念影响评估，且风险感知起中介作用。
Even though the entrepreneurship literature places much emphasis on opportunity recognition, little is known about how entrepreneurs actually evaluate opportunities. This study uses a cognitive approach to examine opportunity evaluation, as the perception of opportunity is essentially a cognitive phenomenon. We present a model that consists of four independent variables (overconfidence, belief in the law of small numbers, planning fallacy, and illusion of control), a mediating variable (risk perception), two control variables (demographics and risk propensity), and the dependent variable (opportunity evaluation). We find that illusion of control and belief in the law of small numbers are related to how entrepreneurs evaluate opportunities. Our results also indicate that risk perception mediates opportunity evaluation.