Week 3 Topic: Do-it-yourself

marketing research for your New

Business

Reading 1:

Mullins, John (2010), The New Business Road Test, 3rd Edition, London: FT
Prentice Hall, chapter 14
Determining the viability of your business model

Launching idea without wasting

years and money
Assessing your opportunity before you write
your business plan and by working
systematically to discover a business model
that really works: a plan B
Its what you dont know that will scupper
your plan A
By identifying your leaps of faith early and
devising ways to test hypotheses that will
prove or refute them, you are in a position to
learn whether or not your plan A will work
before you waste too much time and money

Every business model needs

quantitatively to address five key
elements

Business model grid

Dashboard for discovering your

better business model

Reading 2:

Zahra, S.A., Korri, J.S. & Yu, J.F., 2005. Cognition and international
entrepreneurship: implications for research on international opportunity
recognition and exploitation. International Business Review, 14(2), pp.129146

How entrepreneurs might perceive and construct

their industries boundaries and opportunities at
home and in host countries

Subsequent performance : financial

implications
Gaining a learning if they internationalize:
innovation, learning and adaptation
The process that creates entrepreneurial
international acts has clear and distinct
characteristics but not all
internationalization activities, even in
young firms, are entrepreneurial

The importance and diversity of motivations that

lead entrepreneurs to internationalize their
operations early
Motivations :
1. Entrepreneurs own needs and personality
2. Other motivations mirror the interaction of the
entrepreneurs different needs and ambitions with
the external market realities and challenges.
. Cognitive biases also influence entrepreneurs
decisions. Mitchell et al. (2000) define
entrepreneurial cognition as the knowledge
structures that people use to make assessments,
judgments, or decisions involving opportunity
evaluation, venture creation, and growth.

Vital importance of connecting explanations of IE

decisions to their geographic context

The entrepreneurs views of the

changing domestic and international
competitive terrain and rules of
rivalry are also likely to influence
their future strategic choices,
shaping the pa

Benefit of applying a cognitive

perspective
Can significantly augment prevalent
economics-based views of IE and
born globals
IE activities are rooted in their
contexts but in a non-linear fashion

Comparison

Reading 3:

Ozgen, E. & Baron, R.A., 2007. Social sources of information in

opportunity recognition: Effects of mentors, industry networks, and
professional forums. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(2), pp.174192.

Elements that help entrepreneurs on

recognizing opportunities
Informal industry networks were found to be directly related to
entrepreneurs alertness to new opportunities . It also increases
their self-efficacytheir belief that they can successfully
accomplish tasks they undertake
Reliance on mentors can facilitate opportunity recognition by
entrepreneurs : assisting them in their efforts to identify
opportunities for new ventures.
Participation in professional forums (conferences, seminars, etc.)
Both having a mentor and participating in professional forums
were found to be significantly linked to schema strength, and this
factor, in turn, was significantly related to opportunity recognition