Author(s)

Dan Long ¹, Qi Liu ¹, Yang Hong ¹, Yalong Wei ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China

Corresponding Author

Qi Liu

ABSTRACT

The effectiveness of entrepreneurs' decision-making significantly influences the outcomes of their ventures. Therefore, understanding how entrepreneurs enhance entrepreneurial performance through effective decision-making has become a focal point in academic research. This study investigates the role of experience in shaping entrepreneurs' decision-making approaches in uncertain environments, specifically examining three aspects of experience: entrepreneurial experience, managerial experience, and industry experience. Utilizing a research sample of 203 domestic entrepreneurs, we explore the nature of experience and its impact on decision-making logic. The findings indicate that entrepreneurs with substantial entrepreneurial experience tend to employ both causation and effectuation in the entrepreneurial process. On the other hand, entrepreneurs with extensive managerial experience predominantly adopt a causation-based decision-making approach. Interestingly, industry experience does not significantly influence the decision-making logic of entrepreneurs. Additionally, we observe that environmental uncertainty negatively moderates the relationship between management experience and the use of causation and effectuation.

KEYWORDS

Entrepreneurs' decision-making logic; causation; effectuation; prior experience; environmental uncertainty

CITE THIS PAPER

Dan Long, Qi Liu, Yang Hong, Yalong Wei, The Influence of Prior Experience on Entrepreneurs' Decision-making Logic: The Moderating Effect of Environmental Uncertainty. Industrial Engineering and Innovation Management (2023) Vol. 6: 54-65. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/ieim.2023.060810.

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