Abstract
The recent entrepreneurship research agenda includes the analysis of cognitive structures of successful entrepreneurs, revealing an important tool for the examination of an entrepreneurial career. Using techniques of cognitive maps, this study explores the concepts of a successful career and the network itself, as a whole, for career development. Fifty-three entrepreneurs were studied, in seven technological incubators in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. Specifically, this study aimed to map the shared meanings of the incubated entrepreneurs regarding informal support networks. Such networks support the entrepreneurial career and the present study explores the characteristics and the conceptual model that underlies the networks. The data collection was achieved through interviews through a free evocation technique. The shared meanings indicate the existence of inherent thought categories that support network context in the incubator environment, mainly the mentoring networks. The results endorse the interpretation of an informal mentoring model emerging from the dominant evocations concerning a successful career and of the network itself as promoter of career development.
Highlights
After discussing the theoretical bases that involve the entrepreneurial career and the processes of mentoring, the following section begins with a presentation of the cognitive dimension that underlies the informal social networks in the incubator environment
The shared significance of the entrepreneurs regarding their successful careers and with relation to the role played by the network in career development was analyzed from the salient content of their enunciations
It should be remembered that the evocations on Chart 1 are presented in the following cognitive maps with distinction given by the use of boldface – Figures 2, 3 and 4
Summary
This study seeks to go further into the entrepreneurial area than research developed up until now (Mitchell et al, 2002), by means of the application of the knowledge on social cognition and network relationships. This study seeks to describe the shared meanings among entrepreneurs by means of enunciations, or evocations, on an successful entrepreneurial career and on the role of the network in the development of this career.
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