Entrepreneurship

1. Entrepreneurship 3 Cognitive Foundations of Entrepreneurship: Creativity and Opportunity Recognition

2. “When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” --John F. Kennedy, 1959

3. Why are some successful?

4. Right Person, Right Place, Right Time • Better access to crucial information—information helpful in recognizing opportunities or formulating new ideas • Better able to utilize information—to combine it or interpret in ways that reveal the opportunities overlooked by others

5. Three Key Processes • Idea generation • Creativity • Opportunity recognition

6. A Cognitive Perspective Human cognition—the mental processes through which we • Acquire information • Enter it into storage • Transform it • Use it to accomplish a wide range of tasks

7. Ideas Occur when individuals use existing knowledge they have gained (and retained) from their experience to generate something new—thoughts they did not have before.

8. The Raw Materials The raw materials for new ideas and for recognizing opportunities are present in the cognitive systems of specific persons as a result of their life experience. Unique experience Knowledge Idea generation

9. Memory • Working memory—holds limited amount of information fro brief periods • Long-term memory—retains vast amounts of information for long periods • Procedural memory—automatic knowledge gained through practice

10. Mental Frameworks Mental scaffolds help us to understand new information and to integrate it (often in original ways)—with information we already possess

11. Types of Frameworks • Schemas—cognitive frameworks representing our knowledge and assumptions about specific aspects of the world • Prototypes—abstract, idealized mental representations that capture the essence of a category of objects

12. Mental Shortcuts • Heuristics—simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a rapid and seemingly effortless manner • Availability heuristic—the more easily we bring information to mind, the more importance we assign to it

13. Thinking “Tilts” • Optimistic bias—expect things to turn out well without basis • Confirmation bias—notice, process, and remember information that confirms current beliefs • Illusion of control—assume that our fate is under our control

14. Creativity Items or ideas produced are both • Novel (original, unexpected) • Appropriate or useful

15. Concepts • Building blocks of creativity • Internal mental structures developed to organize information • Categories for objects or events that are somehow similar to each other in certain respects

16. Escaping Mental Ruts Concepts can be stretched in several different ways • Combination • Expansion • Analogy

17. “An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it.” --Robert Bresson

18. Human Intelligence Individuals’ abilities to • Understand complex ideas • Adapt effectively to the world • Learn from experience • Engage in various forms of reasoning • Overcome a wide range of obstacles

19. Kinds of Intelligence • Analytic intelligence • Creative intelligence • Practical intelligence • Social intelligence • Successful intelligence

20. Successful Intelligence Practical Intelligence Analytic Intelligence Successful Intelligence Success Creative Intelligence

21. Confluence Approach Creativity emerges from a confluence of • Intellectual abilities • Broad, rich knowledge base • Appropriate style of thinking • Personality attributes • Intrinsic, task-focused motivation • Environment supportive of creative ideas

22. Broad, Rich Knowledge Base • Having varied work experience • Having lived in many different places • Having a broad social network

23. Opportunity Recognition Some people are more likely to recognize opportunities because • They have better access to certain kinds of information • They are able to utilize the information once they have it

24. Superior Utilization of Information • Richer and better-integrated stores of knowledge • Higher in intelligence • Higher in practical intelligence • Higher in creativity

25. Signal Detection Theory Actual Presence of Opportunity Yes No Yes Judgment About Presence No

26. Regulatory Focus Theory • Promotion focus—attain positive outcomes • Prevention focus—avoid negative outcomes • Successful entrepreneurs adopt a mixture of these two perspectives

27. Increasing Opportunity Recognition • Build a broad, rich knowledge base • Organize your knowledge • Increase your access to information • Create connections between the knowledge you have • Build your practical intelligence • Temper eagerness for hits with wariness of false alarms