Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the psychology of risk: what risk is (if it is anything at all), how people think about it, what they feel about it, and what they do about it. The chapter describes the way psychologists think about risk: how they study it, what tasks they use, what factors they vary, and what models they build (or borrow) to describe risk-taking behavior. Technically, the word risk refers to situations in which a decision is made whose consequences depend on the outcomes of future events having known probabilities. Psychological studies of risky choice (it is the term used conventionally to refer to all but the most extreme instances of ignorance or ambiguity) fall into two groups. At one extreme are the studies run by mathematically inclined experimental psychologists in which subjects make decisions about gambles described in terms of amounts and probabilities. At the other extreme are studies run by personality psychologists, who are mostly interested in individual differences in risk taking. A theory of risky choice is presented in the chapter that attempts to meld the strengths of both approaches. Empirically and methodologically it is tied to the experimental approach to risky choice. But theoretically it is more strongly tied to motivational approaches.

[Advances in Experimental Social Psychology] Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Volume 20 Volume 20 || Between Hope and Fear: The Psychology of Risk

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How engineering innovators characterize engineering innovativeness: A qualitative study

Nascent entrepreneurs have their own business for several reasons, but one can easily distinguish their motivations in two types: the willingness to be an entrepreneur and the need to be one. Finding a good opportunity in the market is not the only way to start a business; entrepreneurs also start a business because there is no better or no other choice to avoid unemployment (e.g., Evans and Leighton, Small Business Economics 2:319–330, 1990; Masuda, Small Business Economics 26:227–240, 2006). The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor divides entrepreneurs’ motivations in two ways: opportunity and necessity. This research analyzes the motivations of nascent entrepreneurs; more specifically, it identifies the main motivations of entrepreneurs across different countries, presenting the characteristics that most influence the motivations of the individuals either by necessity or opportunity; and finally, it clusters countries in terms of entrepreneurship types and characterizes them. The literature suggests that entrepreneurs by opportunity are strongly associated with developed countries. Therefore presenting a set of characteristics that influences these motivations allows a greater understanding of the entrepreneurship process, where the motivation and the process that influence the business decision-making of individuals are critical. Our results show that motivations for entrepreneurship are strongly correlated with the sociodemographic characteristics of the entrepreneur, e.g., age, education, and family income. Our study also shows that entrepreneurship by opportunity does not necessarily happen in developed countries. In contrast, it should be noted that entrepreneurs by necessity do not seek to start an innovative business, nor do they perceive good opportunities in their context; nevertheless they decide to become entrepreneurs as a way to overcome the lack of employment opportunities, suggesting that they seek to avoid possible risks.

Entrepreneurship Motivation: Opportunity and Necessity

The use of science and engineering skills to address the novel challenges of modern society through innovative solutions is regarded as an essential strategy around the world. Many of the studies on innovators, however, are not specific to engineers. To address this gap, this study explored engineers’ views of innovation and the attributes of engineers who create, develop, and implement innovations through in-depth interviews with expert engineering innovators. The study was set in an interpretivist framework and developed a socially constructed description of engineering innovativeness. Forty-five US-based expert engineering innovators were interviewed; these interviews were coded using a grounded-theory approach until categorical saturation was achieved. The results include the identification of 20 characteristics of engineering innovativeness, as well as an ‘engineer’s definition’ of an innovation and several general descriptors of ‘non-innovative’ engineers. The significance of this study come...

Identifying the Characteristics of Engineering Innovativeness

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Relações de influência de indicadores macroeconômicos na propensão ao risco de empreender

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of entrepreneurial thinking systems on risk‐taking propensity and entrepreneurial behavior.Design/methodology/approach – The research was conducted using an original data set of 231 entrepreneurs in China. The data were analyzed through regressing models.Findings – It is found that, in China, the experiential system has a positive impact on risk‐taking propensity yet a negative impact on entrepreneurial behavior; however, the rational system has a negative impact on risk‐taking propensity yet a positive impact on entrepreneurial behavior.Research limitations/implications – This paper focuses on entrepreneurs in a specific geographical region, China. Despite the hypothesis, the impact of thinking systems on entrepreneurial behavior highlights the importance of the rational system.Originality/value – Research of entrepreneurs by foreign scholars has focused on the risk‐perception perspective, and the only national research is based on the authors' ...

Fan Liu-ying

Papers

The impact of entrepreneurial thinking system on risk‐taking propensity and entrepreneurial behavior