Entrepreneurial Failure from a Cognition Perspective：A Literature Review and Prospects

Abstract

Entrepreneurial failure has always been a major concern of both researchers and practitioners. Early studies on entrepreneurial failure focused on the relationship between failure rate, business development and government policies, so as to find effective measures to avoid entrepreneurial failure. Afterwards, from a process perspective, researchers started to examine the impacts of entrepreneurs' dominant characteristics on follow-up entrepreneurial behavior and performance in the case of entrepreneurial failure, but did not deeply investigate the intermediate mechanism of entrepreneurial failure. Therefore, from a cognition perspective, recent researchers explore the entrepreneurs' mind-set, cognition and decision-making processes, and identify the cognitive reasons and corresponding mechanisms behind entrepreneurial failure. Based on sorting out the development context of entrepreneurial failure research, this paper reviews the most recent relevant research on entrepreneurial failure from a cognition perspective in three aspects of entrepreneurial thinking, entrepreneurial knowledge, and entrepreneurial competence. Accordingly it constructs & refines a theoretical framework of entrepreneurial failure and proposes some directions in future research to promote the research development of entrepreneurial failure from a cognition perspective.