Learning to Identify Opportunities: The Concomitant Influence of Affect, Cognition, and Motivation

Academy of Management- August 7, 2012

Introduction
Give a man a fish and hell eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and hell eat forever. Chinese proverb
We know little about how and what entrepreneurs learn Experience can lead to entrepreneurial knowledge Previous studies have emphasized an individualized view of entrepreneurial learning However, this is surprising given a wide range of evidence indicating the importance to entrepreneurs of learning from others Social learning may be of particular importance to entrepreneurs This study integrates social constructivist and educational psychology theories in exploring the entrepreneurial learning process.

Theory
We look at entrepreneurial learning in a social context Social constructivist theory explores how interactions between experts and novices can lead to the heightened development of knowledge Experts facilitate learning through situated modeling, coaching, and fading Extensive research in educational psychology indicate there are primarily two factors that explain individual learning: (1) ability and (2) willingness to learn

Conceptual Model

Display of Structural Alignment Processes Negative Affect

Learning of Structural Alignment Processes

Metacognitive Ability

Creative Self-Efficacy

Structural Alignment
In making sense of new information, individuals compare new stimuli to preexisting information Structural alignment is a cognitive tool that people use to compare and make sense of new things Alignment proceeds at two levels: superficial and structural alignment Structural alignment is more involved in higher-order reasoning: learning, new product ideation, problem solving A study by Gregoire et al. (2010) found that entrepreneurs rely largely upon structural alignment comparisons in recognizing opportunities

Metacognition
An individuals ability to think about their own thinking Allows individuals to consider alternate thinking strategies for a given situation Individuals with metacognitive abilities will be better able to compare and contrast opportunity identification strategies These individuals are better equipped to understand and make thinking changes necessary to develop expertise in a given domain However, negative affect may lead to cognitive overload and inhibit learning

Conceptual Model

Display of Structural Alignment Processes Negative Affect

Learning of Structural Alignment Processes

H2
H1

Metacognitive Ability

Creative Self-Efficacy

Creative Self-Efficacy
An individuals confidence in their ability to attain a high level of performance in a specific task Self-efficacy has been widely found to positively impact performance through effort, persistence, and perseverance Self-efficacy needs to be specific to the task A few studies suggest that in certain contexts, high self-efficacy can lead to diminished performance Affect-as-information literature indicates that affect plays a role in signaling whether one has exerted enough effort on a task The motivational impact of negative affect is likely tied to an individuals level of self-efficacy

Conceptual Model

Display of Structural Alignment Processes Negative Affect

Learning of Structural Alignment Processes

H4 H3

Metacognitive Ability

Creative Self-Efficacy

Sample
Sample includes 124 entrepreneurial students and 124 experienced entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs selected from OneSource database and participation in Technology Park (IN, IL, IA, MI, WI) Students drawn from entrepreneurship and strategy classes

Entrepreneur Demographics Average Age 52 years old, Range 20-85 years old Average Schooling 4 year college degree, Range from high school to PhD An average of 2.8 ventures started per entrepreneur

Research Design

Student attempts OR exercise on own

Student attempts 3 OR exercises in collaboration with entrepreneur

Student attempts a final OR exercise on their own

Measures
Display of and Learning of Structural Alignment Processes Verbal protocol analysis using coding structure consistent with Gregoire et al. (2010). 94% and 90% agreement respectively between coders. Metacognitive Ability We used the Measure of Adaptive Cognition (MAC), a 36 item scale as developed by Haynie and Shepherd (2009). Cronbachs =.94 Creative Self-Efficacy A 3 item measure as developed by Tierney and Farmer (2002). Cronbachs =.83 Negative Affect We used 10 items from Watson et al.s (1998) PANAS scale to measure novice negative affect. Cronbachs =.86

Results
Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test our hypotheses.
Display of Structural Alignment Processes Negative Affect Learning of Structural Alignment Processes

H4: Supported (p<.01)

H2: Supported (p<.01)

H1: Not supported H3: Not supported

Metacognitive Ability Creative Self-Efficacy

Results
Model 3 H1: EntAlignment*Metacognition H2: EntAlignment*Metacognition* Negative Affect H3: EntAlignment*Self-Efficacy H4: EntAlignment*Self-Efficacy* Negative Affect R2 0.308** -0.135 -0.048 Model 4 -0.111 -0.355** -0.267* 0.351** 0.394**

Conclusions
Negative affect can have a powerful effect upon learning In preparatory contexts (where one is learning a new skill), low self-efficacy can lead to higher performance Higher level information processing abilities (metacognition) can actually impair an individuals ability to learn when operating with negative affect Negative affect should be looked at in tandem with cognitive and motivational variables when exploring learning outcomes Collaborative learning between individuals is a viable means of transferring opportunity identification knowledge Collaborative learning may be similarly effective in transferring other types of entrepreneurial knowledge

Questions?

Expansion on Measures
Cohens k also calculated for each measure as shown below Learning of Structural Alignment Processes Verbal protocol analysis using coding structure consistent with Gregoire et al. (2010). 90% agreement between coders. K =.905 Display of Structural Alignment Processes Verbal protocol analysis using coding structure consistent with Gregoire et al. (2010). 94% agreement between coders. K = .895

Controls
Positive affect International origin of novice Amount of conversation by entrepreneur Novice post-interaction negative affect Previous entrepreneurship experience of novices

Graph - Metacognition

Graph Creative Self-Efficacy

Full Results
Variables Control Variables International student Positive affect Total entrepreneur speak Post negative affect Prior novice experience Predictor Variables Entrepreneur structural alignment Negative affect Metacognitive ability Creative self-efficacy Entrepreneur SA X Metacognitive ability Entrepreneur SA X Negative affect Entrepreneur SA X Creative SE Metacognitive ability X Negative affect Creative self-efficacy X Negative affect Entrepreneur SA X Metacognitive ability X Negative affect Entrepreneur SA X Creative SE X Negative affect R2 Adj. R2 R2 0.114* 0.077* 0.255** 0.196** 0.141** 0.308** 0.219** 0.053 0.375** -0.107 0.044 -0.192 0.327** -0.124 0.104 -0.243* -0.048 -0.178 -0.135 0.121 0.098 0.361** -0.026 0.110 -0.271** -0.111 -0.011 -0.267* 0.076 0.267* -0.355** 0.351** 0.394** 0.303** 0.086** Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 -0.204* 0.055 0.036 -0.120 0.178 -0.220* 0.086 -0.154 -0.085 0.210* -0.214* 0.089 -0.161 -0.044 0.242** -0.247** 0.124 -0.206* -0.062 0.221**

0.114* Note: Standardized regression coefficients are displayed in the table *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01