The Microfoundations of Entrepreneurial Cognition Research: Toward an Integrative Approach

The Micofoundations of Entrepreneurial Cognition Research is divided into three sections. The first section reviews the precursor field of social cognition and its historical development to explore how progression in this broader field serves as a conceptual footing for the more specialized, microfoundation-based examination of entrepreneurial social cognition. The second section briefly reviews some of the relevant work in fields that are closely related to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking. It also examines the work of scholars who provided earlier conceptualizations of the role that human thought plays in economic aspects of entrepreneurship, selectively reviewing the major theoretical approaches in the field of entrepreneurial cognition research. The last section makes a case for socially situated cognition as a new and useful framework under which the microfoundations of some of the emerging and more dynamic approaches to the study of entrepreneurs' thinking can be understood and organized. The authors outline some possible productive directions for future entrepreneurial cognition research.