This document discusses how neuroscience can inform entrepreneurship research. It suggests that neuroscience methods can reveal gaps in current theories, help specify hypotheses, and identify antecedent states and decision-making processes. Some areas that neuroscience may provide insights into include pre-entrepreneurial cognition and decision-making, automatic vs intentional processing, and detecting "aha moments". Neuroscience designs could help address issues like common method bias and model the dynamics of entrepreneurial processes. Overall, neuroentrepreneurship is an exciting new area that may substantially advance entrepreneurship research.

1. Neuroentrepreneurship:
What Can Entrepreneurship Scholars
& Educators (& Practitioners) Learn
from Neuroscience?
Presented at ICSB 2010, Cincinnati OH
by
Norris Krueger, Max Planck Institute & Entrepreneurship Northwest
(thanks to great colleagues, Mellani Day, Angela Stanton, Isabell Welpe
and more)

2. Why Neuro-entrepreneurship?
 Behavior starts at the “neuro” level
 Current methods don’t reach this deep
 Opportunity to ask questions:
 That we could not answer before
 That we couldn’t think to ask before
 In a better way
 To get better answers then ever before

3. Latest Work such as...
 Entrepreneurship becoming focus?
 Sahakian team – 'hot' cognitions
 Wald team - dopamine

4. Activation in cingulate cortex & spindle cell density
Nemmers Prize talk May 7, 2005

5. Ultimatum games: This is your brain on unfairness

6. Herb Simon’s (1963) Levels

7. Example: Libet, et.al.
(1983):
 Experimenter can detect intent almost 500
milliseconds before subject perceives it
 Suggests neurological antecedents to:
 Intentions
 Behavior
 What does this mean with regards to
antecedents of entrepreneurial intent?

8. Economically-important regions of the human brain

9. Cingulate (yellow), orbitofrontal (pink),
amygdala (orange), somatosensory (green),
insula (purple)

10. Neuroeconomics has shown us
that Experimental Methods Can:
 Reveal gaps in current theory
 Lead to better specified hypotheses and
propositions (Dolan 2008).
 Identify and analyze antecedent states and
their effects upon decision-making
 Identify reflexive versus reflective behaviors
and effects

11. What can neuroscience
offer?
 Look into the “ultimate black box”
 Rigorous experimental methodologies
 Can allow us to:
 Understand deeper structures of entrepreneurial
cognition
 Map pre-decisional dynamics
 Conceptualize and measure entrepreneurial
decision-making
 Overcome “retrospective bias” and the
interactions among independent variables

12. Domains of neuroentrepreneurship
and experimental entrepreneurship
Domain of Experimental
Entrepreneurship
Neuroentrepreneurship

13. Limitations of Neuroscience
 What about group behaviors of entrepreneurs
as versus the individual?
 Complex behaviors and systems of the brain –
what are we seeing/measuring… really?
 How to control for the influence of external or
extraneous stimuli – are we measuring what
we think we are measuring?
 Learning to use the tools, methods and
procedures – a new way of thinking about the
issues (steep learning curve... turf?)

14. Interesting and relevant
discoveries thus far…
 Pre-entrepreneurial processes: affective &
cognitive reasoning
 Automatic versus Intentional Processing
(reflexive versus reflective)
 Mental prototypes – deeply held assumptions for
the good or for the bad
 Fluid intelligence – ability to solve new problems
 Change blindness – focus on the little ball…

15. Relevant issues in current
entrepreneurship research?
 Common variance bias – attributes of
entrepreneurs may indeed be correlated with
attributes of the perceived opportunities
 Dynamism of entrepreneurial processes
 Conflicting effects of independent variables
 Perceived value of opportunities

16. Neuroscience Designs as
Solutions?
 Design not just methodology proposed
 Allows for current analysis of entrepreneurial decision
process, but also…
 …controls for situational specifics of entrepreneurial
opportunities
 Researchers must develop hypotheses and test
explanations before the fact
 Modeling dynamics and causes can reveal gaps
in current theory; map dynamics of pre-
entrepreneurial decision processes

17. Where to begin? What questions
might we start with?
 Deeper cognitive structures (Mitchell, 2000)
 E.g. Detect entrepreneurial scripts and switches
(on/off)?
 When does the idea become an opportunity?
 When is that opportunity triggered as something to
act upon?
 Detecting discontinuous changes – “Aha!”

18. Potential topics for research?
 Behavioral Decision Theory:
 Framing Effects and Paradoxes
 Preferences
 Utilities
 Game Theory
 Perceptions
 Emotions & Affect
 Affect
 Passion & Fear
 Trust
 Much, much more – applications in your area
of research

19. Conclusion
 Neuroscience methodologies and designs
have much to offer
 Could substantially advance the field of
entrepreneurship
 Exciting new world to explore and apply
 We will undoubtedly be surprised and may
very well have to change some current beliefs
and assumptions

20. Thank you!
Norris.krueger@gmail.com
@entrep_thinking (also FB, L-In)

21. Insula and low strategic IQ
 Strategic IQ (x-axis):
How much you earn
from choices &
beliefs
 Correlated (-) with
activity in L insula in
choice task
  Are overly self-
focussed people poor
strategic thinkers?

22. Overview of fMRI

23. Example: Entrepreneurial Opportunity
 Various issues in current research:
 Dependent and independent variables not
specified or confounding variables not recognized
or controlled for (Shane, 2000, 2004;
Venkataraman, 1997)
 Static versus dynamic perspective
 Opportunity characteristics not recognized or
matched with entrepreneur
 Absence of experimental approaches