Missing the Forest for the Trees: Prior Entrepreneurial Experience, Role Identity, and Entrepreneurial Creativity

Abstract

Extant research has portrayed the effect of prior entrepreneurial experience as one that manifests uniformly across contexts. Drawing on the person-by-situation perspective, we elaborated how prior entrepreneurial experience could manifest differentially across contexts. Results from our lab experiment indicated that prior entrepreneurial experience brought an advantage in avoiding being overly “captivated” by a situationally salient role identity and missing the main goal of developing something that is both novel and commercially viable. Our research also examined the “role identity advantage” by demonstrating that compared to novice entrepreneurs, experienced entrepreneurs can better manage tensions between their chronic and situationally salient identities.

Identity work in different entrepreneurial settings: dominant interpretive repertoires and divergent striving agendas

“…Cardon et al 2009;Murnieks, Mosakowski, and Cardon 2014). Alternatively, they can be more situated and reflect a set of expectations that are elicited under different circumstances (Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008;Wry and York 2017;Zhan, Uy, and Hong 2020). Whilst this literature has shed light on the centrality, salience and affective outcomes of certain entrepreneurial roles from an individual-level perspective, its focus has not encompassed the impact of social drivers in identity development and enactment.…”

Size, entrepreneurial experience and organizational decentralization

“…Experienced entrepreneurs are more likely to have cognitive biases, and their experience can be both an asset and a liability (Gielnik et al, 2018;Nguyen, 2019;Song et al, 2017). Entrepreneurs have encountered many problems before and have identified solutions, and they know how to act (Eesley and Roberts, 2012;Gielnik et al, 2018), which can intensify the disparity between the quality of information about self versus others and can make them overconfident (Zhan et al, 2020). Moreover, entrepreneurs put more focus on the positive aspects of their experience, shift attention away from hardships and overestimate their role in obtaining good results (Billett and Qian, 2008;Ehrlinger et al, 2016).…”

“…Meanwhile, the benefits of entrepreneurial experience (such as intangible and procedural knowledge, management experience, growing reputation, better connections with financial institutions Organizational decentralization and wider social and business networks) are invaluable when forming the next start-up (Asad et al, 2016a;Gielnik et al, 2018;Miralles et al, 2016). Such information can lead entrepreneurs to feel, as time goes on, that they already know enough and that they have already gained sufficient knowledge and skills in different fields because of their working and learning experience (Gielnik et al, 2018;Zhan et al, 2020).…”

“…At the same time, with increasing size, the difficulty and cost of acquiring knowledge are increased (De Meulenaere et al, 2019). However, when entrepreneurs are experienced and have already run into problems and have found their own solutions, they will overestimate their knowledge reserve, believing they have enough knowledge and a thorough understanding of how to fulfill various tasks (Eesley and Roberts, 2012;Gielnik et al, 2018;Zhan et al, 2020). They will be more willing to make decisions by themselves, and their start-ups will remain more centralized.…”

“…Third, this study has a theoretical implication for the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and new ventures. Entrepreneurial experience is defined by whether an individual has previously started or owned a business (Farmer et al, 2011;Zhan et al, 2020). Although many researchers have discussed and confirmed that entrepreneurial experience is the key to organizational performance, previous studies have not paid enough attention to the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and organizational design (D'Angelo and Presutti, 2019;Eesley and Roberts, 2012;Presutti and Odorici, 2019).…”