5. Perceptions Revisited: Continuing to Look at the World Through Entrepreneurial Lenses

This chapter focused on how the perceptions of prospective entrepreneurial action, by intending, nascent, or practicing entrepreneurs, might differ from those of non-entrepreneurs. The perceptions considered were those concerning the risks and rewards of entrepreneurial actions. The rewards are the monetary and psychic gains of entrepreneurship, while risk refers to the probability of loss of time and money invested as well as the psychic costs of economic loss and entrepreneurial failure. A series of “lenses” were proposed that either increase or decrease the clarity of the perceived desirability and the perceived feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur. According to the theory of planned behavior, the formation of entrepreneurial intentions is followed, with a lag that varies with the individual, by entrepreneurial behavior. In the following “afterthoughts” the impact of the lenses on the time lag between intentions and behavior is examined.