The influence of social learning behaviour during entrepreneurial opportunity development

Abstract

The sustainability of nascent entrepreneurs remains a critical factor in addressing society's deep-rooted problems and overall welfare. From this perspective, supporting entrepreneurial learning during their entrepreneurial ventures is critical to the entire community’s success. This study investigates the influence of an entrepreneur’s social learnings, their capacity to cope with new ventures, and the perceptions about their successes or failures during the opportunity development phase. The study finds that entrepreneurs adopt learning behaviour primarily from their social background, driven by a strong desire to rebel against society’s bias, engage in iterative, collaborative engagement with the community. Frequently adopting self-reflection, learning by interpreting and an emotional evolution of their entrepreneurial mind-set relying on the logic of bricolage and emotional cognition to create opportunities that support the communities. This study is limited to a sample of South African entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial mentors using in-depth semi-structured interviews. The study adopts an exploratory and qualitative methodology. The study finds application for both all entrepreneurs, policy makers and educational learning programs involved in the mentorship and development of entrepreneurs. This study provides a deeper analysis of opportunity development phase of a nascent entrepreneur. With a focus on the social learns, emotional cognitions and experiential learning factors that drive and inhibit them and further obtaining an understanding the coping mechanisms that could be adopted for effective and sustainable opportunity development and, ultimately, ensuring that nascent entrepreneurs transition to the final phase of entrepreneurship.