The Entrepreneurial Lens Of Decision-making And Opportunity Recognition: An Eye-tracking Study On Student Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurial cognition research juxtaposing the cognitive processes of entrepreneurs against non-entrepreneurs is adopting tools offered by cognitive neuroscience. We employ eyetracking, still underutilized in entrepreneurship research to capture differences in signals between student entrepreneurs and student non-entrepreneurs as they scan SWOT analyses. We hypothesize student entrepreneurs employ different decision-making strategies compared to student non-entrepreneurs — like differential opportunity recognition marked by differences in their eye movement parameters. The results highlight signatures of faster, yet not necessarily less efficient, information processing in entrepreneurs compared to non-entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, there is need of more studies to delve into the collection and processing of information during decision-making in entrepreneurs, in the context of opportunity recognition.