The Psychological Actions and Entrepreneurial Success: An Action Theory Approach

This chapter starts with a strong assumption: Entrepreneurs’ actions are important and should be a starting point for theorizing in entrepreneurship (cf. also McMullen & Shepherd, 2006). I am well aware that not all entrepreneurship theorists share this assumption. Most importantly, ecological theories have left out actions from their theories (Aldrich, 1999). This is surprising for an evolutionary approach because entrepreneurial actions are as important to entrepreneurial outcomes as sexual behavior is to procreation and, therefore, survival of genes and population of genes (Dawkins, 1976). Whether or not an organization occupies a successful niche or whether or not it introduced an innovation is the result of actions and not a purely accidental process. Starting one’s business in a market niche and defending the niche is an active process and not passive adaptation. Such an active approach is slowly accepted in entrepreneurship research, as scholars take more seriously that there can be effective and non-effective actions vis-à-vis the market (McMullen & Shepherd, 2006; Sarasvathy, 2001). Most actions are geared towards the environment and take into account environmental conditions. However, the most important feature of entrepreneurial action is not that it is well adjusted to environmental conditions (this is true of behavior that reacts to environmental stimuli and is guided by the stimuli) but that it changes the environment.