: The situational triggers that affect the decision-making style of entrepreneurs with professional backgrounds over time
(2025) ENTN19 20251Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Entrepreneurial decision-making is a complex and dynamic process influenced by the challenges, uncertainty, and environmental situations inherent to the entrepreneurial journey. This study investigates how entrepreneurs with relevant professional backgrounds navigate the shift between analytical, structured and intuitive, experience-driven decision-making approaches over time. The methods involved in this thesis are qualitative, multi-case research design with semi-structured interviews involving ten participants. Thematic analysis is used to analyze the data collected, providing a systematic yet flexible approach to interpreting complex textual data, allowing for rich, nuanced insights that align well with the exploratory and... (More)
- Entrepreneurial decision-making is a complex and dynamic process influenced by the challenges, uncertainty, and environmental situations inherent to the entrepreneurial journey. This study investigates how entrepreneurs with relevant professional backgrounds navigate the shift between analytical, structured and intuitive, experience-driven decision-making approaches over time. The methods involved in this thesis are qualitative, multi-case research design with semi-structured interviews involving ten participants. Thematic analysis is used to analyze the data collected, providing a systematic yet flexible approach to interpreting complex textual data, allowing for rich, nuanced insights that align well with the exploratory and interpretative research objectives.
The findings identified seven situational triggers: Business Growth, Emotional Intensity, Market Conditions, People-Related Decision, External Stakeholders Considerations, Time Constraints, and Financial Considerations, which play a key role in the interplay between decision-making shifts. This suggests that entrepreneurs alternate rather than constantly filter between intuition and analysis, blending these modes flexibly in response to situational demands that impact entrepreneurial cognitive processes. The discoveries also highlight three main cognitive processes that are driven by the situational triggers (Experiential-Based Intuition, Reflective Learning, and Cognitive Versatility), and how these mental processes evolve through different stages of the venture life cycle, with intuition predominating in creation phases, reflective learning during development, and a dynamic balance of both in growth and maturity stages.
These insights make a theoretical contribution to the entrepreneurial cognition literature by developing a dynamic and integrated process that deepens the understanding of entrepreneurial decision-making styles as a fluid response to cognitive processes impacted by specific situational triggers, influenced by entrepreneurs' previous knowledge and experience. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9203615
- author
- Puelma Silva, Anita Maria Josefa LU and Lee, Man Ki LU
- supervisor
-
- Ziad El-Awad LU
- organization
- course
- ENTN19 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Entrepreneurial Decision-Making, Cognitive Processes, Experiential-Based Intuition, Reflective Learning, Situational Triggers, Cognitive Versatility, Intuitive decision-making, Analytical decision-making, Prior professional experience, Entrepreneurial cognition, Experiential learning
- language
- English
- id
- 9203615
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-24 09:59:08
- date last changed
- 2025-06-24 09:59:08
@misc{9203615,
abstract = {{Entrepreneurial decision-making is a complex and dynamic process influenced by the challenges, uncertainty, and environmental situations inherent to the entrepreneurial journey. This study investigates how entrepreneurs with relevant professional backgrounds navigate the shift between analytical, structured and intuitive, experience-driven decision-making approaches over time. The methods involved in this thesis are qualitative, multi-case research design with semi-structured interviews involving ten participants. Thematic analysis is used to analyze the data collected, providing a systematic yet flexible approach to interpreting complex textual data, allowing for rich, nuanced insights that align well with the exploratory and interpretative research objectives.
The findings identified seven situational triggers: Business Growth, Emotional Intensity, Market Conditions, People-Related Decision, External Stakeholders Considerations, Time Constraints, and Financial Considerations, which play a key role in the interplay between decision-making shifts. This suggests that entrepreneurs alternate rather than constantly filter between intuition and analysis, blending these modes flexibly in response to situational demands that impact entrepreneurial cognitive processes. The discoveries also highlight three main cognitive processes that are driven by the situational triggers (Experiential-Based Intuition, Reflective Learning, and Cognitive Versatility), and how these mental processes evolve through different stages of the venture life cycle, with intuition predominating in creation phases, reflective learning during development, and a dynamic balance of both in growth and maturity stages.
These insights make a theoretical contribution to the entrepreneurial cognition literature by developing a dynamic and integrated process that deepens the understanding of entrepreneurial decision-making styles as a fluid response to cognitive processes impacted by specific situational triggers, influenced by entrepreneurs' previous knowledge and experience.}},
author = {{Puelma Silva, Anita Maria Josefa and Lee, Man Ki}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{: The situational triggers that affect the decision-making style of entrepreneurs with professional backgrounds over time}},
year = {{2025}},
}