Recognizing Opportunities across Campus: The Effects of Cognitive Training and Entrepreneurial Passion on the Business Opportunity Prototype

Abstract

We analyze the effects of the program Cognitive Entrepreneurial Training in Opportunity Recognition on the accurate assessment of prototypical viability of business opportunities. The training integrates the principles of experiential learning and is designed to reach students across campus. We also investigate the moderating role of entrepreneurial passion on opportunity recognition learning. We use a quasi‐experimental design with pre‐test, post‐test in two European universities. The results demonstrate that the training has positive significant effects on the accurate identification of business opportunities' prototypical viability. Intense positive feelings about entrepreneurship moderate the learning process. We provide insights into entrepreneurship education practice across campus.

Notes

1 The scenarios in German and Portuguese are available from the first author upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sílvia F. Costa

Sílvia F. Costa is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Groningen Centre of Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen; and affiliated to the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE‐IUL), Business Research Unit (BRU‐IUL), Lisboa, Portugal.

Susana C. Santos

Susana C. Santos is Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Florida, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, and at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE‐IUL), Business Research Unit (BRU‐IUL), Lisboa, Portugal.

Dominika Wach

Dominika Wach is Senior Researcher at Work and Organizational Psychology, Technical University of Dresden.

António Caetano

António Caetano is Full Professor at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE‐IUL), Business Research Unit (BRU‐IUL), Lisboa, Portugal.