Missing the Forest for the Trees: Prior Entrepreneurial Experience, Role Identity, and Entrepreneurial Creativity

Extant research has portrayed the effect of prior entrepreneurial experience as one that manifests uniformly across contexts. Drawing on the person-by-situation perspective, we elaborated how prior entrepreneurial experience could manifest differentially across contexts. Results from our lab experiment indicated that prior entrepreneurial experience brought an advantage in avoiding being overly captivated by a situationally salient role identity and missing the main goal of developing something that is both novel and commercially viable. Our research also examined the role identity advantage by demonstrating that compared to novice entrepreneurs, experienced entrepreneurs can better manage tensions between their chronic and situationally salient identities.

Automated summary

Previous research has suggested that the effect of prior entrepreneurial experience is consistent across different contexts. However, this study demonstrates that prior entrepreneurial experience can manifest differently in different contexts. It shows that such experience provides an advantage in avoiding being overly influenced by situational role identities and helps in achieving the dual goal of novelty and commercial viability. Additionally, experienced entrepreneurs are better at managing tensions between their long-term and situational identities.