The cognitive perspective in entrepreneurship research has predominantly evolved around the static conceptions of cognition at the level of individual reasoning. Recently, the emerging stream of situated entrepreneurial cognition asserts that the eironment substantially influences the inherent knowledge structures of entrepreneurial reasoning. It claims that the context indoctrinates the perceptions and beliefs underlying decision making, thus authoring entrepreneurial cognition to derive from the recursive interaction between the mind and the respective eironment. Drawing on this perspective, this article follows a narrative approach iestigating the unfolding dynamics between the entrepreneurial cognition and contextual factors in a business model design. Using textual accounts from 34 episodic interviews with entrepreneurs from corporate entrepreneurship initiatives, we applied a constant comparative method identifying main themes in the data. Our findings show that entrepreneurial cognition is embedded, grounded, and distributed. We provide evidence that the situated entrepreneurial cognition results from the recursive interplay of material objects, bodily interactions, and agents spanning a social system. Our findings suggest that the unilateral consideration of authored cognitive systems falls short in capturing the holistic nature of entrepreneurial cognition. Thus, our findings further empirically ground situated entrepreneurial cognition by placing the entrepreneur at the nexus of individual and context. Finally, this article reveals the business model as a central boundary object connecting and focalizing a variety of influences on the situated entrepreneurial cognition in its social context.
Accentuating the role of managerial cognition in business model design, scholarly work recently conceptualizes business models as cognitive phenomenon reflecting managerial mental models. However, this theoretical position has been largely criticized for its emphasis on the limitations of human cognition, resulting in studies that explore the manifestation of cognitive constraints. To further advance the conceptualization of business models as cognitive structures, this dissertation focuses on the cognitive heuristics undergirding managerial reasoning to counter cognitive biases inherent in the design of new business models. Providing implications for research at the intersection of cognition and business model design, our studies are situated in the context of corporate entrepreneurship initiatives, spawning the entrepreneur at the nexus of individual and idiosyncratic context. Note from the IEEE journal: In reference to IEEE copyrighted material which is used with permission in this thesis, the IEEE does not endorse any of HHL's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. If interested in reprinting/republishing IEEE copyrighted material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution, please go to <link http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/rights_link.html _blank>http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/rights_link.html</link> to learn how to obtain a License from RightsLink.
Entrepreneurs designing novel business model configurations face cognitive biases that derive from limited mental capacity to deal with complex and uncertain decision contexts. Building on the notion of the business model as an idiosyncratic mental representation that organizes managerial understanding of value creating and value capture, we iestigate how entrepreneurs cope with cognitive biases inherent in business model design. We conducted a total of 35 in‐depth interviews with entrepreneurs situated in 15 corporate entrepreneurship initiatives in Germany. Our study results suggest that entrepreneurs counter cognitive biases by combining intuitive and deliberate reasoning approaches. Specifically, we identify five cognitive mechanisms and two higher level cognitive processes undergirding entrepreneurial reasoning in the design of new business models. Our findings provide empirically grounded insights into the cognitive perspective in business model research and help to theorize managerial reasoning during the process of business model design.