Abstract:
Purpose—This paper analyzes how different experts in entrepreneurship perceive their
surrounding environment and business opportunities. The authors suggest that people act
the way they do not only because of different interpretations of the environment but also
because of the relative importance they give to the context and themselves in their mental
scripts.
Design/methodology/approach—A Mann-Whitney U non-parametric test and PCA were
conducted to examine the National Expert Survey (NES) from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) database of Chilean experts.
Findings—When experts in entrepreneurship are compared, entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs differ in their use of certain cognitive resources about past or current events, but they map out future situations similarly, suggesting that their mental simulations may converge into similar patterns.
Originality/value—This study provides useful insights regarding the impact that mental
representation has on experts’ perception, by discussing how experts who are entrepreneurs perceive the entrepreneurial ecosystem and current opportunities differently than experts who are not entrepreneurs. The specific context plays a key role in the way entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs analyze their surrounding environment but not necessarily opportunities.
