Document Type

Honors Thesis

Publication Date

Spring 5-2018

Abstract

This study is a replication of research done by Dew et al. (2009) that aims to confirm that expert entrepreneurs use effectual logic framework as opposed to the casual, or predicitive, logic utilized by novices. In order to test this theory we provided 5 expert entrepreneurs and 5 novices with a case statement that provided information of an imaginary new venture and asked them to think aloud continuously as they solved decision-making problems relevant to this, and any, new venture while we recorded them. We coded the transcriptions of these recordings according to the scheme of the Dew et al. 2009 study and analyzed the coded results. We found that while the majority of the results were similar, there were notable differences among specific metrics, but not entire constructs. We posit that many of these differences may be attributed to the smaller sample size of this study and the three main differences between the two studies: participant pool, environmental factors, and the recruitment process. We further recommend that additional research be conducted to better understand the influence of the participants environment, innovation engineering training, and the participants overall experience with the recruitment process and execution of the interviews.

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