Investigating affect and cognition: A theoretical contribution on entrepreneurial decision making

There is a general agreement that the decision-maker’s affect is a critical prerequisite for organizational success (Fenton-O’Creevy, 2011). This is mainly true for entrepreneurial decision-making (Baucus et al., 2015) in that has been widely demonstrated that affect exerts strong influence on entrepreneurial cognition (Mitchell et al., 2002, 2007). However, a comprehensive understanding of how affect influences the decision-making process and its outcome is still lacking in the literature (Curşeu, 2010). Accordingly, this study departs from the importance of affect for entrepreneurs decision-making and explores the process that links positive and negative affect, considered as information to process, to entrepreneurial decision-making effectiveness. In so doing, it contributes to entrepreneurial cognition studies, by adding new theoretical insights on the relationship between affect and cognition. Moreover, it helps capture the complexity inherently involved in entrepreneurial decision-making.