Title: The role of human capital for entrepreneurial decision-making - investigating experience, skills and knowledge as antecedents to effectuation and causation

Authors: Jochen Schmidt; Sven Heidenreich

Addresses: Burda Studios, Hubert Burda Media, Arabellastr. 23, 81925 Munich, Germany ' Faculty of Business and Law, Saarland University, P.O. 15 11 50, 66041 Saarbrücken, Germany

Abstract: Experts in entrepreneurship apply effectuation rather than causation as entrepreneurial approach in corporate ventures. While previous research suggests that entrepreneurial experiences determine this effect, it is unclear how different types of such experiences and other elements of human capital influence entrepreneurial decision-making. Hence, this study differentiates experience in start-ups and corporate entrepreneurship to empirically evaluate their individual effects alongside with entrepreneurial skills and knowledge on 212 German general managers' behavioural intentions to apply effectuation or causation. Results from structural equation modelling (SEM) indicate that corporate entrepreneurship experiences foster causation and oppress effectuation while start-up experiences drive the application of both entrepreneurial behaviours the other way around. Furthermore, entrepreneurial skills facilitate the use of prior knowledge through an effectual approach. This emphasises that the way how employees develop ideas into practice relates to multiple facets of human capital and thus to more than entrepreneurial experiences, as it has been long suggested by previous studies.

Keywords: entrepreneurial decision-making; effectuation; causation; human capital; HC; corporate entrepreneurship.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2018.093226

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2018 Vol.10 No.3, pp.287 - 311

Received: 14 Apr 2015
Accepted: 14 Dec 2015
Published online: 24 Jul 2018 *

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