Past Experience, Cognitive Frames, and Entrepreneurship: Some Econometric Evidence from the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

The theoretical literature identifies three important entrepreneurial dimensions, namely discovering new opportunities, responsiveness to uncertainty, and coordination of a firm. In the empirical literature, past experience has been identified as having an important influence on organizational behavior. This literature, however, focuses predominantly on the impact of experience on new opportunities using a resource-based view and human capital perspective. In contrast, we draw upon the cognitive science literature to argue that past experience shapes an entrepreneur’s cognitive frame, and, hence, influences entrepreneurship in a more holistic manner. We provide econometric evidence of the impact of past experience on all three entrepreneurial dimensions from the small scale Indian pharmaceutical enterprises.