Entrepreneurial Policies and Strategies: The Innovator's Choice

While there is a considerable body of literature on both entrepreneurship and achievement motivation, there are still many unanswered questions concerning both these phenomena and the psychological traits and motivations of high achievers. This fresh and unusual study of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship focusing on the innovators’ heuristics is based on first-hand observation, interviews, published case studies and an exhaustive literature survey. It provides a novel theoretical perspective on the strategies and policy orientations of new ventures, using an innovative research method which is an easy-to-use but scientifically rigorous version of the case survey method, synthesising the benefits of qualitative and quantitative data. Ingeniously building on the theory of heuristic (right brain) decision-making propounded by Herbert Simon, Henry Mintzberg and others to explain managerial effectiveness, Mathew Manimala explores the phenomenon of entrepreneurial heuristics (rules of thumb), and provides illuminating insights into what pioneering-innovative (PI) entrepreneurs do while establishing and operating their enterprises. Among the topics discussed are the relevance and significance of studying new venture policies; the relative efficiency of the paradigms of strategic choice and environmental determinism to explain the phenomenon of innovative entrepreneurship; heuristics used by high and low PI groups; entrepreneurial orientations and their explanatory and discriminatory powers; and entrepreneurial subtypes. A great strength of the book is the contrast it provides between the modus operandi of innovative as opposed to ‘ordinary’ entrepreneurs. It thus shifts the focus from ‘what entrepreneurs are’ to ‘what entrepreneurs do’. With its fresh insights into entrepreneurship behaviour and providing an alternative theoretical model, this book will interest academics, practitioners and policy makers in the fields of entrepreneurship, economic development, management of innovation, industrial psychology, human resource development and organisational research methods.