Missing the Forest for the Trees: Prior Entrepreneurial Experience, Role Identity, and Entrepreneurial Creativity

Abstract

Extant research has portrayed the effect of prior entrepreneurial experience as one that manifests uniformly across contexts. Drawing on the person-by-situation perspective, we elaborated how prior entrepreneurial experience could manifest differentially across contexts. Results from our lab experiment indicated that prior entrepreneurial experience brought an advantage in avoiding being overly “captivated” by a situationally salient role identity and missing the main goal of developing something that is both novel and commercially viable. Our research also examined the “role identity advantage” by demonstrating that compared to novice entrepreneurs, experienced entrepreneurs can better manage tensions between their chronic and situationally salient identities.