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Abstract

Entrepreneurs make important decisions regarding different aspects of their enterprises. Given the bulk of uncertainty, complexity as well as the rapid rate of change in their business environment, entrepreneurs’ decisions, including their marketing decisions, are prone to decision-making biases. Previous research has mainly focused on the negative outcomes of decision-making biases for entrepreneurs. We argue that sometimes entrepreneurial decision-making biases could have positive outcomes, too. Ignoring these positive outcomes has led to a serious research gap in the field of entrepreneurship. Thus, in this paper, we attempted to explore positive outcomes of decision-making biases in entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions with a generic qualitative methodology. We gathered data by conducting semi-structured interviews with nascent Iranian entrepreneurs active in nanotechnology and biotechnology. The collected data were analyzed by thematic analysis. Our results indicate that survival in the market, overcoming the competition, propensity for innovation and growth are the main positive outcomes of entrepreneurial decision-making biases in entrepreneurial marketing. We recommend that future studies consider exploring other possible positive outcomes of decision-making biases in various entrepreneurs’ decisions.

Keywords

Decision-Making Biases, Qualitative Inquiry, Escalation of Commitment, Overconfidence, Marketing, Nascent Entrepreneur

Author Bio(s)

Pouria Nouri is a Ph.D. graduate of business entrepreneurship from the University of Tehran, faculty of entrepreneurship. His research interests include entrepreneurial decision making as well as heuristics and biases. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: pourianouri62@gmail.com.

Narges Imanipour is an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the university of Tehran faculty of entrepreneurship, department of business creation. She specializes in various aspects of entrepreneurial decision making. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: nimanip@ut.ac.ir.

Kambiz Talebi is a full professor of entrepreneurship at the university of Tehran faculty of entrepreneurship, department of business creation. Having been studying various aspects of entrepreneurship for many years, he is a prolific writer of well-reviewed articles in the field of entrepreneurship. His main research interests include SMEs and strategy. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: ktalebi@ut.ac.ir.

Mohammadreza Zali is the head of faculty of entrepreneurship as well as an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the university of Tehran faculty of entrepreneurship, department of organizational entrepreneurship. He specializes in various aspects of organizational entrepreneurship. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: mrzali@ut.ac.ir.

Publication Date

6-8-2018

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3280

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