Entrepreneurial opportunity decisions under uncertainty: Recognizing the
complementing role of personality traits and cognitive skills
- Emmanuel Kwasi Mensah,
- Lawrence Adu Asamoah,
- Vahid Jafari Sadeghi
Abstract
Entrepreneurship research on decision making under uncertainty has
focused largely on the effect of uncertainty on the entrepreneurial
actions while attempt at the individual level particularly, from the
cognitive framework seeks to explain why actions differ. Scholarly
efforts have also been made on what informs entrepreneurial actions from
the perspective of the entrepreneur's personal attributes. However, no
integrated approach is offered in the literature to study how cognitive
skills and personality traits complement each other. In this paper, we
consider how cognitive skills and personality traits affect an
entrepreneur's decision to discover or create opportunities under
uncertainty. Specifically, we examine the complementary role of
personality traits and cognitive skills towards opportunity decisions.
We provide a conceptual basis for a broader perspective on behaviors and
cognitions that motivate or hinder entrepreneurial actions while at the
same time positioning the entrepreneur's decision at the core of the
decision theory. Propositions regarding the application of some selected
personality traits and cognitive skills and their complementarity are
presented and discussed.