We examine whether having previously been self-employed is a negative signal on the job market. In a UK field experiment where two applications of otherwise equally qualified individuals were sent out in response to the same vacancies in human resource management, we find that entrepreneurs systematically receive fewer responses than non-entrepreneurs. Empirical studies that treat market wages as the opportunity cost of remaining self-employed are therefore likely to overestimate alternative earnings to entrepreneurship.

Extant studies promote opportunity belief as an antecedent of entrepreneurial action. However, we do not sufficiently understand how beliefs about the desirability and feasibility of an entrepreneurial opportunity are formed. We argue that desirability and feasibility are related but distinct micro-foundations of entrepreneurial action formed through different cognitive-emotional mechanisms. Drawing on the appraisal tendency framework, we investigate the indirect effects of three basic emotions (anger, fear and happiness) on desirability and feasibility through the appraisal tendency of controllability. In an experimental study (N = 191), we find evidence for the distinctiveness and interconnectedness of desirability and feasibility beliefs. In addition, our findings show that desirability can be predicted by emotions through controllability, but we cannot predict feasibility through the same appraisal process. Our study seeks insights concerning how desirability and feasibility beliefs regarding an entrepreneurial opportunity are distinctively formed based on the inner cognitive and emotional processes of individuals.

Overconfidence has been identified as a source of suboptimal decision making in many real-life domains, with often far-reaching consequences. This study identifies a mechanism that can cause overconfidence and demonstrates a simple, effective countermeasure in an incentive-compatible experimental study. We observed that joy induced overconfidence if the reason for joy (an unexpected gift) was unrelated to the judgment task and if participants were not made specifically aware of this mood manipulation. In contrast, we observed well-calibrated judgments among participants in a control group who were in their resting mood. Furthermore, we found well-calibrated judgments among participants who received the joyful mood induction together with questions that forced them to reflect on their current mood and the (ir)relevance of its cause to our judgment tasks. Our findings suggest that being aware of one’s positive mood and the reason for that mood may effectively reduce overconfidence for a short period.

Emotions play an important role in decision-making and they can impact individual as well as shared decisions. With increasing complexity of the decision, the potential for emotions to influence the outcome increases. Emotions are thus an influential factor in oncological decision-making which is a complex and high-stakes situation. As the shared decisionmaking process is at the center of patient-centric decisions, we model emotions as social information that inform the shared decision-making process. We present and explain a range of emotional concepts, together with a specific clinical example, that can impact the shared decision-making process. Our process model shows that emotions are experienced in various combinations before, during, and after a shared decision is made and how patients' and physicians' emotions interact and spill over during a shared decision situation. Overall, our process model and specific example show how emotions can impact shared decision-making in oncology in a multitude of ways. With this paper, we want to raise awareness of the role of emotions in the shared decision-making process, as emotions are often not explicitly recognized as decision criteria. Increased awareness of emotions may help their optimal utilization and reduce their influence as a bias in shared decision-making.