Self-regulation and dealing with uncertainty: How to support entrepreneurs to better cope with uncertain decision-making

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Tobias Jenert
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 431566813

Frequently, entrepreneurs have to make decisions based on limited information and in situations of uncertainty. Entrepreneurship research therefore has become increasingly interested in the psychological aspects that help entrepreneurs to cope with uncertainty when founding and developing a new venture. Many entrepreneurs are very capable in judging situations involving varying degrees of uncertainty. Yet, how do entrepreneurs decide when it is effective to make rapid, even ill informed decisions and when it is necessary to engage in further learning to curtail uncertainty? So far, this capability to judge situations involving uncertainty has not been thoroughly investigated. We introduce the concept of self-regulation to explore how entrepreneurs regulate the dynamism involved in learning in uncertain decision situations. Specifically, we address the following questions: - How are entrepreneurs´ capabilities to regulate their cognition related to learning for decision-making in uncertain situations? - How are entrepreneurs´ capabilities to regulate their motivation to engage in learning in uncertain situations? - Which situations cause entrepreneurs to become (de-)motivated when developing their business?- Which actual strategies do entrepreneurs highly capable of self-regulated learning employ to motivate themselves in uncertain situations? - Which domain-specific educational interventions can foster the development of self-regulated learning-capabilities in entrepreneurship education?Self-regulation capabilities may be the decisive element to understand how and why entrepreneurs can exploit the potential of learning for managing uncertainty. Self-regulation allows to actively monitor and regulate one’s cognition and motivation. Self-regulated learning (SRL) focuses on the “how” of self-regulation, i.e. on the actual thought processes that are executed during self-regulation. Our research has two main aims: First, to uncover the relationship between entrepreneurs´ self-regulation capabilities and their usage of cognitive and motivational strategies in uncertain decision situations (study 1). Second, to develop an educational intervention to develop entrepreneurship learners´ SRL capabilities (study 2). Our first study analyzes the relationship between self-regulation and entrepreneurial learning and motivation under uncertainty. In a one-year longitudinal interview study, we investigate how ca. 100 nascent entrepreneurs cope with decision-making under uncertainty. The second study uses a pre-post / treatment-control-group design with a student (ca. 400) and a practitioner (ca. 100) sample. We analyze the effectiveness of educational interventions on the development of SRL capabilities.Alongside the project, workshops with leading entrepreneurship scholars will help us to develop an effective mix-method research design and practically relevant interventions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Urs Fueglistaller; Dr. Alexander Fust